Applicants should focus on at least one of the following three aspects:

• Air pollution, especially in the urban environment, taking into account existing evidence, notably the latest WHO air quality guidelines of 2021 and their recommendations on different pollutants, including on pollutants of emerging concern, looking at e.g;
• Noise pollution and light pollution impact on human health;
• Pollution from hazardous waste (e.g. pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, e-waste, plastics (including nano- and microplastics) in heavily contaminated environments and adverse health outcomes.

The proposed research should strengthen the knowledge base available to policymakers regarding pollution-disease associations and causal mechanisms at different phases of the life course, taking advantage of latest molecular, cellular and computational technologies to elucidate biological pathways from exposure (including combined exposures) to disease. The work should bring together toxicology, exposure science, public health engineering and environmental epidemiology, and build on data from sources such as pollution-related databases, disease registries, epidemiological studies and biobanks, environmental and human biomonitoring data and new generated data and could consider citizen science and other innovative approaches.

Several of the following activities should be included:

• Research activities to strengthen the evidence base for pollution-disease associations and underlying causality mechanisms and biological pathways, taking into account combined exposures and mechanisms of increased sensitivity in susceptible groups;
• Delivery of FAIR data on causal associations between environmental risk factors and health outcomes, in particular for air pollutants of emerging concern, specifically ultrafine particles, black carbon, and others, taking into account vulnerable population groups and specific exposure situations in a life-course approach including vulnerable early-stages of life and transgenerational risks;
• Development of user-friendly tools for systematic mining and assessment of the knowledge generated and translation into best practices and to improve the assessment of individual life-exposure to pollutants;
• Proposals for environmental limit values for the studied pollutants and generation of health impact indicators, where relevant and taking into account existing standards and evidence;
• Development of guidelines and socio-economic and decision support tools for different actors including policymakers, health professionals and citizens to take action to prevent pollution-related illnesses and impairments, and to enable the choice of healthier lifestyles and behaviours;
• Identification of cross-sectoral interventions (case studies) with the potential for remediating pollution and risk of exposure and improving human health and well-being in the short/medium term;
• Development of training courses on pollution and health impacts to inform professionals impacting our daily lives e.g. medical personnel, engineers, teachers, urban planners;
• Design of best-practice evidence-based communication actions for fact-based risk and benefit communication and improving citizen awareness of pollution and preventive actions, offsetting dissemination of misinformation;
• Undertaking case studies to demonstrate the added societal value of tools, methodologies and guidelines developed and the implementation of resulting actions to decrease health impacts of exposures.

In order to optimise synergies and increase the impact of the projects, all projects selected for funding from this topic will form a cluster and be required to participate in common networking and joint activities.