Brussels, 24 March 2025
From 20 to 26 March 2025, the Horizon 2020 projects EXIMIOUS and EPHOR are organising the Occupational Exposome Week. The projects are part of the European Human Exposome Network (EHEN) and focus on delivering a new way of assessing the human exposome, specifically the occupational exposome. This approach calculates the occupational exposure, defined as the contact with a potentially harmful physical, chemical, or biological agent as a result of one’s work.
HaDEA is funding a number of projects working in the field of environment and health at the workplace.
European Human Exposome Network (EHEN)
- The EPHOR project has developed a tool (EuroJEM) to conduct assessments of occupational exposure in large populations where individual data is not available. This includes a comprehensive set of job-exposure matrices (JEMs), resulting in a tool that addresses some of the most prevalent and significant occupational exposures in the labour market.
- EXIMIOUS has worked to analyse huge datasets and to construct ‘immune fingerprints’ that reflect a person’s lifetime exposome and that are early signs of poor health and predictors of disease at the individual level. The project has developed the standard operating procedure (SOP) tool, a set of guidelines detailing how to collect, store, and ship biological samples to analyse internal exposome markers, with key steps to maintain the samples’ quality even in complex sites (like mines, factories or hospitals).
- The HIGH Horizons (Heat Indicators for Global Health) project is focused on monitoring, early warning systems and health facility interventions for pregnant and postpartum women, infants and young children and health workers, to adapt maternity and neonatal care health facilities to beat the rising heat levels.
- Outdoor workers are exposed to hazards induced by climate change. CATALYSE develops a framework to reduce occupational exposure to climate change. The project assesses cost-effective strategies to protect workers from heat stress. It addresses the needs of vulnerable groups, such as outdoor workers and migrants. Training materials are created for healthcare professionals to support adaptation and mitigation. The goal is to protect occupational health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, it is conducting fieldwork in three countries: Italy, Spain and Austria.
- POLYRISK is working to understand the health risks associated with human and health hazard of micro- and nanoplastic (MNP) exposure. More specifically, it is assessing the exposure to MNP in workers in specific industries, such as plastic recycling company in The Netherlands and textile production in Romania.
- PLASTICHEAL focuses on investigating the impact and consequences of micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) on human health, involving occupationally exposed workers from plastic- and textile-related industries and greenhouses in biomonitoring studies. The project has developed PlasticRiskCat, a methodology for categorising risks associated with different types of MNPs. Protocols to collect human biomonitoring data to assess exposure of workers in different exposure scenarios will be delivered at the end of the project.
- The PlasticsFatE project aims to enhance current understanding on the impact of MNPs in the human body. To do this, it is implementing a comprehensive measurement and testing programme to improve the performance of methods and tools for the identification of MNPs, which will lead to a novel risk assessment strategy.
Background
Horizon Europe is the research and innovation programme of the EU for the period 2021-2027. The aims of Cluster 1 ‘Health’ include improving and protecting the health and well-being of citizens of all ages by generating new knowledge, developing innovative solutions and integrating where relevant a gender perspective to prevent, diagnose, monitor, treat and cure diseases. Horizon 2020 (H2020) was the EU’s multiannual funding programme between 2014 and 2020.
Source – HaDEA