The Equal-Life project is well on its way after 18 months since the start of the project. A European Commission funded project such as Equal-Life, part of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, is required to prepare a technical report at this 18 month mark. Reason for the Executive Committee, comprised of the project’s coordinating team and work package leaders, to come together and evaluate where the project stands.
To include those interested in the process, our project management team has prepared a summary on the individual work package's (WPs) work. Highlight updates per work package include what is listed below. Click the links to read the full 18 month updates on the WP page:
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WP1 Mechanisms developed a conceptual model based on their literature review on exposome pathways influencing children's mental health and cognitive development;
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WP2 Internal exposome selected biological samples available for biomarker discovery and published a paper on the analysis of a biomarker for aggression;
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WP3 Physical exposome is defining environmental exposure indicators and is in the progress of developing a prediction model for sleep disturbance and noise annoyance;
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WP4 Social exposome learned that the views around the concept of the social exposome vary greatly and developed a conceptual model showcasing the social exposome’s multi-layered nature and relations between different sub factors;
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WP5 Multimodal data collection and enrichment identified data available on the external exposome and presented their first prototype of this Data Collection & Enrichment tool;
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WP6 Integrative data analysis and modelling proposed a machine learning code to identify important predictors of the mental health and cognitive development in children;
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WP7 Health data match and health effect analysis made an overview of the cohort and school study data to be used within Equal-Life and harmonizes data to make sure that it can be combined and compared;
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WP8 Stakeholder involvement and preparation of interventions wrote the Strategy report on stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement and is developing a "living" toolkit;
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WP9 Tools, training and implementation was involved in exploration activities for collecting expected outputs and data formats from the other work packages, aimed at the definition of the requirements of the Equal-life toolkit;
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WP10 Management and dissemination coordinates the project and developed, among others, a dissemination and publication plan. (For ethics, see WP12);
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WP11 Cluster activities: Equal-Life and ATHLETE co-coordinate the European Human Exposome Network (EHEN) since March 2021, and prepared its Communication and Dissemination Strategy;
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WP12 Ethics requirements looked into ethical requirements around human research, the protection of personal data and informed consent, and retrieved expertise from its External Ethics Board to help monitor the ethical concerns of this project.
More on the exposome
Equal-Life performs their work alongside eight other research projects that study the impact of environmental exposure on human health. Together they form the European Human Exposome Network (EHEN), which aims to contribute to advancing the European Green Deal. Learn more about the exposome, the EHEN network and its associated research projects in their latest newsletter, and stay up to date on the network’s work, upcoming events and other exposome news through their website.
