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Cross-Mediterranean Environment and Health Network (CROME- LIFE)
Start date: Jul 1, 2013, End date: Dec 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Background Public health indicators are regularly collected in EU Member States but they are hardly ever connected to the environmental condition of individuals. A major limiting factor in most environmental health studies to date has been the uncertainty in quantitative estimates of chronic exposure. Objectives The CROME LIFE project aims to assess the impact on human health of exposure to chemical agents originating either from environmental contamination (air, soil and water) or from consumer products (food contact materials, construction materials, cosmetics, clothes, etc.), through multiple routes – inhalation, ingestion and dermal contact – in four distinct areas of southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Slovenia and Spain). The overall goal is to significantly improve exposure analysis by coupling environmental and biological monitoring and modeling. To this end, the project aims to demonstrate a technically-feasible integrated methodology for interpretation of human biomonitoring (HBM) data, which will allow for quantitative assessments to be made of the impact on human health of acute/chronic exposure to chemicals acting as neurodevelopmental and neurological toxicants and/or human carcinogens (e.g. PCBs and PBDEs, organochlorine and organobromine compounds). The methodology applied will couple environmental monitoring data with human biomonitoring and epidemiological observations through the use of physiologically-based toxicokinetic (PBTK) and toxicodynamic (PBTD) models. These models would allow the project to mechanistically associate the observed concentrations of contaminants in environmental media (air, water and soil) with human biomonitoring data already available to the project consortium and collected through targeted field campaigns. The overall methodological tool that will be developed will be directly linked to the decision-making processes of the competent local/regional and national authorities in the four demonstration sites. It will thus provide a more reliable scientific basis for environmental and public health protection decision-making, leading to more cost-efficient and effective environmental and public health management. Expected results: Operational demonstration of the use of human biomonitoring data for aggregated and cumulative health impact assessment through the development of new standards for HBM data interpretation in conjunction with environmental and exposure information in four selected areas of southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain and Slovenia); Improved knowledge on the identification of the cause-and-effect relationship between different environmental stressors, biomonitoring data and observed adverse health outcomes, taking into account exposure and impact variations resulting from intrinsic (e.g. genetic susceptibility) and extrinsic (e.g. diet and socio-economic status) factors; Increased understanding amongst policy makers and increased awareness within local public and competent authorities in the selected countries that using advanced biomonitoring and environment and health data analysis for efficient exposure assessment and health risk management. This will result in improved decision-making processes; The project will support the Environment and Health Action Plan (EHAP) of the European Commission by extending health impact assessment (HIA) methods and tools to carry out environment-wide association studies of environmental stressors and human health. This will advance the design of more targeted public health protection measures with a more efficient use of financial resources; and New integrated methods and tools for assessing links between the environment and health, and new knowledge about the link between quality of the environment and health impacts.

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