Article published 7 January 2025

Work package one - Review of state-of-the-art knowledge
Work package one has formed the foundation of the VALESOR project by mapping current knowledge about environmental stressors and their impact on health and society.
One of the main objectives has been identifying and prioritising the chemical stressors and air pollutants that are most important to analyse. This work reviews existing legislation, such as the European Union Ambient Air Quality Directive and Drinking Water Directive and REACH and the Zero Pollution Action Plan, to identify the most relevant substances from a regulatory perspective.
To make the results from work package one accessible and highlight important policy recommendations, four policy briefs have been developed under 2024. The policy briefs highlight, among other things:
- Choices of morbidity outcomes and concentration-response functions for health risk assessment of long-term exposure to air pollution
- Effects of socioeconomic status on vulnerability and susceptibility to air pollution
- The last decade of air pollution epidemiology and the challenges of quantitative risk assessment
- Economic costs of health endpoints related to pollution and chemical exposure
Overall, work package one provides a solid scientific basis for the VALESOR project's continued work on valuing environmental stressors and developing policy recommendations to reduce their negative impact on health and society.
/ Hans Orru, Umeå University