Over the last few years, the environment and its relationship with population health, specifically for children, has become an important issue around the world, putting it on the agendas of the World Health Organization (WHO), governmental and non-governmental organizations.

The Canadian Institute of Child Health (CICH) and the Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centers (CAPHC) have partnered with the Asociación Argentina de Médicos por el Medio Ambiente (AAMMA); the Paediatric Societies in Argentina (SAP), Paraguay (SPP), Uruguay (SUP), Chile (SCP); WHO and the International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE) to educate and train health care professionals about children's environmental health issues.

The education and training of health care professionals has been identified as a major area needing to be addressed to build capacity. Data collected through the survey will help to understand the needs and interests of health care professionals in each country in relation to children's environmental health.

The project will then use existing international resources to build the capacity of as many as 37,000 health care professionals in the participating countries to assess and initiate protocols to prevent environmentally-related diseases in children.