The Lexicon

To promote a common understanding of technical terms related to health and environment issues WHO has created an on-line searchable database with multi-language terminology equivalence, called The Health and Environment Lexicon (The Lexicon).

Presently, there are over 2,700 English terms, with the following multi-language equivalents: French (2,300) , Spanish (2,100), Portuguese (1,700) and  Arabic (1,300). Chinese, German, and Russian being added progressively. This is an on-going project which has three phases, listed in order of priority: 1) translations; 2) definitions; and 3) explanations and examples.