Environmental impact on health and health inequalities
This theme covers the impact (both positive and negative ) of environment (including indoor environments) on physical (both non-communicable and infectious disease), mental health and wellbeing and health inequalities.
The key areas / challenges defined in this theme focus on climate and net zero, environmental stressors and environmental benefits. In addition, the challenges encourage the development of methodologies for holistic/comprehensive evaluation of the impact of environment as a complex system, rather than reducing to single pollutants (the exposome approach).
Each challenge will include efforts to increase our understanding of the causal links with health and health inequalities, to subsequent use this knowledge to implement and test effectiveness of solutions.
Our key areas
Climate and net zero
What is the impact of climate change (direct and indirect) on human health and health inequalities as well as the impact of measures introduced to move towards a net-zero society.
Environmental stressors
Improve our understanding of mechanisms how environmental exposures can impact human health. In addition, we need to improve methods to assess the exposure to environment risk factors, in particular taking into account multiple exposures, over multiple pathways and routes, across the lifetime. Evidence will be used to develop and test interventions/risk mitigations.
Environmental benefit
How can we develop healthy environments that improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities.