Report 9: Update to Policy Strategy

Translating Evidence into Policy The European Human Exposome Network received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No: 874583 (ATHLETE), 874703 (EPHOR), 874724 (EQUAL-LIFE), 874707 (EXIMIOUS), 874627 (EXPANSE), 874662 (HEAP), 874864 (HEDIMED), 874739 (LONGITOOLS) and 874753 (REMEDIA). Report 9: Update to Policy Strategy Period: M55-M60 Update to Joint strategy for science to policy translation of the scientific evidence generated by the network. Translating Evidence into Policy 2 Document info Deliverable number Report 9 Title Report 9: Update to Policy Strategy - Joint strategy for science to policy translation of the scientific evidence generated by the network. Type Report Dissemination level Public Due date: 30/06/2024 (M54) Date of submission: 28/06/2024 Delivered by ATHLETE , ISGlobal Equal-Life, RIVM Authors : Contributors: Genon Jensen, Julianna Angelova (ATHLETE, HEAL) Johanne Boulding (LONGITOOLS, BetaTechnology) Daniel Schmidtmann (HEDIMED, empirica) Laurien Ulfman (EXPANSE, University of Utrecht) Irene van Kamp, Sonja Jeram (EqualLife, RIVM) Astrid Kruizinga (EPHOR, TNO) Approved by: EHEN Board This document reflects only the authors’ view, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. Summary This document provides an update to the previously outlined strategy for the European Human Exposome Network (submitted as Report 8), to collect and translate scientific evidence generated within its nine individual projects into formats that can be used in the policy-making process. Together, the projects not only cover a wide range of topics and different aspects of the exposome but also their results might influence various stakeholders across a variety of policy issues. This document lays out a methodological approach for EHEN and the nine projects to work together to identify the areas where their scientific evidence can contribute; how to identify relevant stakeholders; analyse and comprise evidence, disseminate findings in various formats, and engage with stakeholders through events to support the policy-making process. Translating Evidence into Policy 3 Introduction The European Human Exposome Network1 (EHEN) is the world’s largest network of projects studying the impact of environmental exposure on human health. It brings together nine research and innovation projects, receiving over €100 million from Horizon 2020, the EU’s framework programme for research and innovation. Using exposome research approaches, these projects address the impact on health resulting from various combined exposures such as air pollution, noise, chemicals, microbes, and exposure related to urbanisation (including social factors). The projects’ results will contribute to advancing the European Green Deal’s2 ambition and related policies (chemical strategy for sustainability; zero pollution action plan; 8th environment action plan; strategic Framework for Health and safety at work; EU’s biodiversity strategy for 2030, urban health and noise), to protect citizens from pollution and environmental deterioration by providing new evidence for better preventive policies toward improving citizens’ health and well-being, while reducing inequalities. In Table 1 an overview is given of which project could contribute to the various policies. The exposome describes all external and internal factors that can influence our health, from (before) birth until death. External factors include, for example, the environment, nutrition and diet, lifestyle, workplace, infections, etc. The nine EHEN projects study different aspects of the exposome and the impact it has on various areas of health and society. The EHEN projects ATHLETE measures many environmental exposures (urban, chemical, lifestyle, and social risk factors) during pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence and links them to children’s biological responses and cardiometabolic, respiratory, and mental health. athleteproject.eu EPHOR studies the exposomic factors during the working-life. Their research will contribute to reducing the burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) on EU healthcare systems, improving the health and wellbeing of EU citizens, improving the productivity of the EU workforce, and increasing the competitiveness of EU industry. ephor-project.eu Equal-Life develops and tests combined exposure data using a novel approach to multi-modal exposures and their impact on children’s mental health and development. 1 https://www.humanexposome.eu/ 2 https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/communication-european-green-deal_en Translating Evidence into Policy 4 equal - life.eu EXIMIOUS maps exposome, immune system (immunome), other omics, and clinical and socio-economic data to identify ‘immune fingerprints’ that are early signs of poor health and predictors of disease at the individual level. eximious-h2020.eu EXPANSE aims to decrease the proportion of unexplained CardioMetabolic and Pulmonary Disease (CMPD) risk in urban populations and to gain insights into mediating biological mechanisms and causality. expanseproject.eu HEDIMED identifies exposomic determinants, which are driving the rapid increase of immune-mediated diseases (IMDs) such as type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, allergies and asthma. hedimed.eu HEAP provides an efficient platform (including informatics infrastructure and software platform) for handling and analysing large amounts of data on environmental exposures and their health effects. heap-exposome.eu LongITools is studying the interactions between the environment, lifestyle and health throughout the life-course in determining people’s risks of developing chronic cardiovascular and metabolic diseases longitools.org REMEDIA studies the contribution of the exposome on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis (CF). h2020-remedia.eu This document outlines the policy areas where at least two EHEN projects may contribute and that a coordinated approach in the context of the EHEN is then relevant. As Table 1 below indicates, the outcome of the individual EHEN projects might have an impact on specific groups or topics, they may affect certain policy areas and contribute to the advancement of existing policies. These include, but are not limited to air, environment, nature and biodiversity, noise, health, urban environment and social environment. Policy areas and strategies Translating Evidence into Policy 5 The EU’s chemicals strategy for sustainability towards a toxic-free environment aims to better protect citizens and the environment boost innovation for safe and sustainable chemicals3 The aim of the Zero pollution action plan - Towards zero pollution for air, water and soil is for air, water and soil pollution to be reduced to levels no longer considered harmful to health and natural ecosystems, that respect the boundaries with which our planet can cope, thereby creating a toxic-free environment.4 The long-term aim of the Environment action programme to 2030 - The 8th Environment Action Programme will guide European environmental policy until 2030 is that, by 2050 at the latest, Europeans live well, within planetary boundaries, in a well-being economy where nothing is wasted. Growth will be regenerative, climate neutrality will be a reality, and inequalities will have been significantly reduced.5 The EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027 defines the key priorities and actions for improving workers’ health and safety, addressing rapid changes in the economy, demography and work patterns. 6 The Biodiversity strategy for 2030 is a plan to protect nature and reverse the degradation of ecosystems. The strategy aims to build our societies’ resilience to future threats such as the impacts of climate change, forest fires, food insecurity, disease outbreaks - including by protecting wildlife and fighting illegal wildlife trade. 7 Urban health aims at ensuring general well-being in cities by understanding how the urban environment affects health outcomes at both collective and individual level.8 The WHO Urban Health Initiative mobilises and empowers the health sector to promote the implementation of air and climate pollutant reduction strategies, provides tools and guidance for decision-makers to assess potential health benefits and health risks, and demonstrate to the public the full range of health, economic and climate benefits that can be achieved from implementing local emission reduction policies and strategies.9 EU noise policy aims to monitor and tackle environmental noise in Europe to help achieve the zero pollution vision for 2050. EU rules address noise pollution from the main sources, outdoor noise sources, as well as underwater noise affecting sea animals.10 3 https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/chemicals-strategy_en 4 https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/zero-pollution-action-plan_en 5 https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/environment-action-programme-2030_en 6 https://osha.europa.eu/en/safety-and-health-legislation/eu-strategic-frameworkhealth-and-safety-work-2021-2027 7 https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/biodiversity-strategy-2030_en 8 https://urban.jrc.ec.europa.eu/thefutureofcities/urban-health#the-chapter 9 https://www.who.int/initiatives/urban-health-initiative 10 https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/noise_en Translating Evidence into Policy 6 Translating Evidence into Policy Table 1. Overview of foreseen policy contributions of the different EHEN projects. Relevant to Policy/Policy area Topic Chemicals Environmental Pollution H&S at work Obesity Biodiversity Urban health Cosmetics Noise Directives/Legislation Chemicals strategy EC Zero pollution action plan Ambient Air Quality Directives 8th Environment Action Programme EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027 Childhood Obesity Action EU’s biodiversity strategy for 2030 Urban Health EU Cosmetics Directive/ Regulation (revised in 2022) Noise Health of children HEDIMED ATHLETE EXPANSE HEDIMED ATHLETE EQUAL-LIFE EXIMIOUS REMEDIA LONGITOOLS HEDIMED ATHLETE EQUAL-LIFE EXIMIOUS EXPANSE REMEDIA LONGITOOLS ATHLETE EXPANSE LONGITOOLS HEDIMED ATHLETE HEAP EQUAL-LIFE EXPANSE HEDIMED REMEDIA LONGITOOLS ATHLETE EQUAL-LIFE REMEDIA LONGITOOLS Health of workers EPHOR EPHOR EXIMIOUS LONGITOOLS LONGITOOLS LONGITOOLS EPHOR Health of individual suffering from immune mediated disease HEDIMED HEDIMED EXIMIOUS HEDIMED EXIMIOUS LONGITOOLS EPHOR HEDIMED HEDIMED Non communicable diseases EXPANSE HEDIMED EPHOR HEDIMED REMEDIA EXPANSE HEDIMED REMEDIA LONGITOOLS EPHOR LONGITOOLS HEDIMED EXPANSE HEAP HEDIMED LONGITOOLS REMEDIA LONGITOOLS Respiratory Disease EXPANSE HEDIMED REMEDIA HEDIMED EXPANSE HEDIMED REMEDIA EPHOR LONGITOOLS HEDIMED EXPANSE HEDIMED REMEDIA LONGITOOLS REMEDIA LONGITOOLS Mental Health issues EPHOR LONGITOOLS EQUAL-LIFE LONGITOOLS LONGITOOLS Translating Evidence into Policy 8 Translating Evidence into Policy Priorities of the next EU Commission and next EU policy cycle: 2024-2029 In early June 2024, the European Parliament elections took place, and a new EU Commission President and Commissioners will be nominated in the coming months. New EU policy priorities for the mandate 2024-2029 will also be set. These will be based on the EU’s Strategic Agenda which outlines the EU political priorities for the future and is set to be adopted in June 2024. The following policy milestones could be used as opportunities to provide EHEN evidence and results. These potential actions are to be discussed in the EHEN working groups before proceeding. 1. The new EU policy priorities by the new EU Commission President (JulySept 2024). EHEN could consider providing the new EU Parliament and Commission Presidents with a letter outlining any EHEN evidence and briefing(s). The information provided could also be shared through EHEN and project partners’ social media channels. 2. European Parliament hearings of the Commissioners-designate for Environment, Climate, Health (Oct-Nov 2024). A possible EHEN activity could be sharing data/statistics, evidence on how environmental exposures impact health, or information on the use of health impact assessment in spatial planning to identify health and wellbeing impacts, with political chairs who could use it to inform their members of the European Parliament when drafting questions to potential Commissioner nominees on implementing the Zero-Pollution, Chemicals Strategy or 8th EAP for the hearings for the new relevant Commissioners. Due to the importance of the aforementioned policies and the impact these research projects can achieve, it is important to put a strategy in place to translate the scientific evidence into tangible and meaningful policy recommendations and to involve the relevant stakeholders. We will interact with the relevant EC Knowledge Centres (for example centre of cancer, centre of biodiversity etc) when appropriate. Also, if relevant, policies like the Healthier together initiative11, Urban Agenda12, and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), WHO Healthy Cities13, and national and local action plans will be considered. This document lays out the EHEN strategy with updates for translating evidence into policy. We presented this joint strategy for transferring and translating the evidence generated by the nine exposome projects under the EHEN umbrella into 11 https://health.ec.europa.eu/document/download/d843d53e-c1c1-4664-b31efebf618d011a_en?filename=eu-ncd-initiative_publication_en_0.pdf 12 https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/brochure/urban_agenda_eu_202 1update_en.pdf 13 https://www.who.int/europe/groups/who-european-healthy-citiesnetwork#:~:text=Healthy%20Cities%20approach,health%20at%20the%20local%20lev el. Translating Evidence into Policy 16  Metabolome  Microbiome  Ageing and stress In late May 2024, the project papers submitted were summarized in relation to the above topics and a draft text was circulated. The EHEN projects are in the process of providing input to the different sections of the draft. These will then be unified to come up with key messages around reducing exposures and health impacts. In general, the approach applied has been to highlight similarities and differences between the projects to ensure an encompassing view of the findings. Concrete implications of the findings for policy will be presented whenever possible. This approach to information synthesis will ensure accessibility of information to policymakers as well as other parties influencing the policymaking process, such as interest groups. Stakeholder Engagement Both, EHEN internal and external stakeholders need to be engaged throughout the policymaking process to ensure that evidence can inform policy. EHEN Internal Stakeholders Within EHEN, the following stakeholders will be engaged: o EHEN Network Advisory Board o Policy experts from different EHEN projects/institutes o Project researchers within the 9 projects This will allow the network to harness expertise and build a sound knowledge base when engaging in policy-informing activities. External Stakeholders The main target group for this strategy of translating scientific evidence are policymakers. Nevertheless, third parties can also influence the policymaking process. These include:  Regulatory authorities and guidelines committees  Governmental actors  Other scientists and researchers  Private sector/industry  Social and environmental groups  General public  Patients and risk groups  Consumer associations  Health care sector  Media Translating Evidence into Policy 17 The establishment of formal and informal channels of communication between EHEN, policymakers and policy influencers will allow for the identifying policy needs and exchanging of knowledge and findings. It will enable solid relationships between the parties. One example of engagement across different levels and stakeholder groups has been through the use of periodic campaigns. In spring of 2023, a short focused social media campaign was run on the exposome during the lead up to the EHEN external stakeholder event in June 2023. This involved all EHEN projects sharing the same/similar weekly tweets for the five weeks prior to the event, to share key messages and encourage attendance. To promote public engagement, in December 2023, the HEAP communications team launched a short online citizen quiz “Your exposome”, to find out the most pressing public concerns about the effect of the environment on health, and to gather feedback on exposome research topics. The quiz was shared through the network and replies indicated that air pollution and diet were the top concerns – with 80% of respondents worried about these exposures. Also high on the list were viruses, household chemicals and water quality. Presentation and Dissemination of Results Scientific evidence and lessons learnt from the projects have been presented in a non-technical manner in different accessible formats, such as newsletters, websites, social media posts, executive summaries, interim reports, including dissemination at the EHEN level via the EHEN website. Moreover, they will be adapted for different policy maker categories if possible. Documents will then be distributed in a timely manner to ensure the currency of the information with respect to the policymaking processes. Besides policymakers, findings will also be distributed to influential stakeholders, such as interest groups, as they can also influence the policymaking process. The material to be shared will also include relevant infographics and research briefs. Arrangements will be made with EHEN’s communication and dissemination working group (C&D WG) to distribute evidence to ensure streamlined efforts and harness their expertise. Specifically, the policy subgroup within the C&D WG will be responsible for this process. The EHEN newsletters remain an effective tool to provide summaries and updates on exposome research and projects’ results which are shared widely at network level and across project channels. Specific content on EHEN themes/topics has been developed and featured as part of the EHEN blog series, that explains challenges and opportunities in the field of exposome research. Each project is responsible for one blog piece which is meant to target one of the key EHEN stakeholder groups. Translating Evidence into Policy 18 Events In addition to one-way communication channels such as websites and publications, EHEN will plan workshops and science policy meetings, webinars with different audiences, if relevant, such as 1. High-level audiences: e.g., directors of regulatory/governmental health research institutes, EU, WHO, ECHA, EEA, (National) Ministries of Health, Directorates, and Members of the European Parliament. 2. Targeted audiences (together with project-specific satellites): e.g., Heads of branch organisations, patient groups, etc. The policy subgroup of the C&D WG will be responsible for organising this further and when possible the European Commission will facilitate this process (e.g. by helping to organise a forum about policy making in relation to EHEN meetings or other high-level meetings). One key EHEN event took place and another one is being planned so that projects can share scientific updates and results, and to have targeted discussions about exposome topics and links to policy action:  EHEN Scientific and external Stakeholder meeting in Leuven, 30 May-1 June 2023 to discuss key aspects of relevant policies with representatives from EC, DG-RTD, DG EVN, and WHO, as well challenges of translating scientific findings into insights that could be used for policy development.  EHEN Scientific and Stakeholder meeting in Brussels, 26-28 November 2024 – preparations for the event have started and the scientific and organizing committees have been established. Toolbox The Projects that make up the European Human Exposome Network each include the development of a toolbox both for assessing and addressing the impact of environment on health and enabling researchers and policymakers to continuously include new knowledge in the policy-making processes by using the toolbox to generate data and information. Toolbox contents are specific to each project, and may include, for example, database and results catalogues, data collection protocols, analysis pipelines and protocols, health impact assessment and intervention toolkits, e-learning tutorials, and policy recommendations. Policymakers can use the toolbox for the development of evidence-based and cost-effective preventive policies and actions. EHEN acknowledge that it is important to build an inventory of tools developed in all Projects, to avoid stakeholders wishing to find specific tools having to search nine separate toolboxes. This tool inventory or “virtual toolbox” is available on the Network website and allows users to search through the tools, using an easy-to-use classification system. As projects add their tools, links to the location of each tool, as well as a Translating Evidence into Policy 19 brief explanation of its use are included. Regular updates about the toolbox are communicated through news pieces and the newsletters. In closing, based on the approaches to define the policy strategy and the outlined updates, EHEN will continue to explore possibilities to make research results and evidence available so that they can support policy-making processes. This will guide not only a common strategy, but also project specific strategies at different scale levels, to use new evidence for better preventive policies toward improving citizens’ health and well-being, while reducing inequalities.