This section provides guidance on risk assessment and reduction measures for mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining and mercury use in health care.
Information on how governments can meet their obligations under the terms of the Stockholm, Basel and Minamata Conventions regarding mercury is also provided.
Relevant tools
Below is a list of tools relevant for implementing this topic :
- WHO - Burden of disease estimates: Mercury - Assessing the environmental burden of disease at national and local levels [2008]
- ILO: Exposure to Mercury in the world of work - A review of the evidence and key priority actions (2022)
- WHO - Addressing health when developing national action plans on artisanal and small-scale gold mining under the Minamata Convention on Mercury [2019]
- WHO - Artisanal and small-scale gold mining and health [2016]
- UNEP - Guidance document: Developing a National Action Plan to Reduce and, Where Feasible, Eliminate Mercury Use in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining [2018]
- WHO/UNEP - Guidance for identifying populations at risk from mercury exposure [2008]
- WHO - Affordable Technology: Blood pressure measuring devices for low resource settings [2005]
- WHO - Developing national strategies for phasing out mercury-containing thermometers and sphygmomanometers in health care [2015]
- UNDP - Guidance on the cleanup, temporary or intermediate storage, and transport of mercury waste from healthcare facilities [2015]
- WHO - Safe management of wastes from health-care activities [2014]
- UNIDO - Braving the elements: UNIDO and Mercury [2018]
- UNEP/Basel Convention - Technical Guidelines for the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of elemental mercury and wastes containing or contaminated with mercury [2015]
- UNEP - Toolkit for Identification and Quantification of Mercury Releases [2019]
- UNEP/UNITAR - MercuryLearn: E-learning platform for the Toolkit for Identification and Quantification of Mercury Releases [accessed 2022]
- UNEP/Minamata Convention - Overview of Key Operational Articles under the Minamata Convention on Mercury [2016]
- UNEP/Minamata Convention - Becoming a party to the Minamata Convention on Mercury [2022]
- UNEP/Minamata Convention - Practical steps of the ratification, acceptance, approval or accession processes and notifications under the Minamata Convention-PowerPoint [2015]
- UNEP/Minamata Convention - Guidelines on the environmentally sound interim storage of mercury other than waste mercury [2018]
- UNEP - Practical Sourcebook on Mercury waste storage and disposal [2015]
- WHO - Assessment of prenatal exposure to mercury: standard operating procedures [2018]
- WHO - Assessment of prenatal exposure to mercury: human biomonitoring survey: The first survey protocol [2018]
- WHO - Step-by-step guide for developing a public health strategy for artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the context of the Minamata Convention on Mercury [2021]
- WHO - Human biomonitoring in artisanal and small-scale gold mining: ethical and scientific principles [2021]
- WHO - Report of the informal global WHO consultation with policymakers in dental public health, 2021: monitoring country progress in phasing down the use of dental amalgam [2021]