English Abstract For the planned expansion of Schiphol airport an
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was legally required. As part of this
EIA an assessment was made of the effects on public health caused by
environmental pollution originating from airport activities. In this report
the feasibility of current health databases for the assessment of the public
health status around Schiphol Airport is evaluated. Databases which
register data on the following health effects are studied: cardiovascular
and respiratory diseases, cancer, birth-weight, psychological effects, sleep
disturbance and medication use. The results show that only few existing
health databases are feasible for the health status assessment. The Dutch
Information System for Hospital Care and Day Nursing can be used to study
the incidence of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases respectively. The
Netherlands Cancer Registry can be used to study cancer incidence. The
Dutch Obstetrics Registration is feasible for a study on birth-weight and
pharmacy records can be used to study medication use. Data on sleep
disturbance are not ruitinely registered. Also general practitioners can be
an important source of information of data on relevant health effects. The
feasibility of these data, however, has to be studied. To use data from
general practice to study the public health effects of environmental
pollution related to Schiphol airport, a special data base has to be
develloped.
