Integrated Surveillance System for Polluted Communities: A Task Force for Syndemic Health Risks

The world is currently facing a pandemic and global challenges such as climate change, poverty, hunger, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification and inequalities. In this context, it follows that societies have forgotten a worrying old problem: pollution in all its shapes and forms. Thus, a plan must be devised to deal with the effects of chemical, physical and biological pollution. Such a strategy, however, should not ignore the syndemic caused by the interaction of pollution with the rest of the environmental, social, political, economic and health problems humanity has to deal with. Likewise, it should consider starting the intervention at the local scale, i.e. from the communities up. In this paper we present the conclusions of a series of collaborations that we have published in this journal, as well as our strategy for tackling polluting processes at the community level in highly vulnerable regions that we have named Humanitarian Scenarios, which include not only human communities but also the rest of nature's living beings ( Total Health scheme). We have called this initiative Integrated Monitoring System for Polluted Communities (SIVICCO) since it incorporates a set of concepts and tools for preventing the negative effects of pollution in all its forms and in all communities. SIVICCO is an integrated strategy but, above all, the expression of a new civic spirit based on the active participation of communities from a human rights perspective.