Strengthen regulatory provisions related to environmental exposures

This subtask has four aims:

1. Mapping and evaluation of policies and legislative frameworks targeting air pollution and noise reduction on European, national and sub-national level. This will include overarching policy frameworks like the Zero-Pollution Action Plan as well as national exposure limits and guidelines for area planning;
2. Reviewing and evaluation of exposure-reducing interventions performed on a national or subnational level, including white and gray literature. Examples of relevant interventions include measures to limit driving (e.g. road tolls, fuel taxation, speed limits etc.), wood stove exchanges, noise barriers, facade insulation, zero-emission zones, improved walkability and bikeability, green space, etc.;
3. Evaluation of the exposure trends of air pollution and noise in a selection of European countries to assess the impact of historical policies and legislations on national and European level. This will be based on national exposure data from a selection of data sources, including the European Environmental Agency, Copernicus, and national exposure models. This exercise will facilitate the evaluation of the effect of implemented legislative frameworks and include a correlation analysis; and
4. To facilitate the evaluation of future implementation of legislative frameworks, the impact of selected policies and interventions on air pollution and noise will be modeled to generate population exposure distributions. This detailed modeling, that will only be completed for a selection of countries, will serve as a basis for development of a simplified modeling approach to generate population exposure distributions for a wider selection of European countries. 

The aim of this sub task is twofold:

1. Map the legislative frameworks and their implementation targeting chemical exposure in Europe, with emphasis on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), high priority substances in the EU; and
2. Evaluate temporal trends in exposure to PFAS to facilitate evaluation of the effect of implemented legislative frameworks.

To facilitate this we will:

• Compile information on the legislative frameworks implemented for PFAS both on an EU level and on a case national level;
• Evaluate temporal trends in human blood levels of PFAS in the European population during the last two decades utilizing data from the two major EU projects, the scientific literature, and complementing chemical analyses. The data the projects include harmonized and comparable data from a number of countries (>10) covering all regions of Europe;
• Establish model projections to foresee trends in exposure the next decade; and
• Explore the possibility of attributing trends in the exposure to implementation of specific legislative framework.

Download the PFAS Questionnaire: Help Us Map National Legislation

The PFAS questionnaire is part of JA PreventNCD Subtask 5.7.2, which aims to map and model the impact of policies for environmental chemicals like PFAS on human exposure and health. Your insights will help us evaluate national legislative frameworks and their effectiveness in reducing exposure to these harmful substances.

The questionnaire can be downloaded below. Please complete and return it by the end of December 2024 to Dr. Panu Rantakokko ([email protected]) or Dr. Merja Korkalainen ([email protected]).

Assess the impact of implementation of measures to reduce air pollution, noise and exposure to environmental chemicals in Europe, utilizing burden of disease estimations and cost-benefit analysis. These activities will be linked to the ongoing EU-projects BEST-COST and PARC and rely on the methodology developed there, but will expand that work in terms of evaluation of a more extensive selection of policies. Moreover, the detailed policy analysis in subtasks 5.7.1 and 5.7.2 will allow for evaluation of interactions of legislative frameworks and interventions across the different environmental exposures. The work will include the following activities:

1. Quantification of the health benefit of measures to reduce exposure to environmental contaminants, focusing on cancers and NCDs;
2. and evaluation of the costs associated with the implementation of the policy measures.