The Life-GAP project
The "Lifespan and inter-generational respiratory effects of exposures to greenness and air pollution" (Life-GAP) project will study how air pollution affects respiratory health over time and across generations, with particular focus on low exposure levels. We will also investigate potential beneficial effects of greenness: an exposure that has been suggested to improve certain aspects of health but where little so far is known regarding respiratory effects.
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Life-GAP will focus on numerous outcomes of lung health: symptoms, diseases, medication use, hospitalisations - as well as factors at birth affecting lung health later in life (birth weight, pre-term birth), and the end-stage outcome: mortality. We will investigate both associations and population attributable risks, to be able to assess how much of the lung outcomes could be avoided if pollution exposures were removed.
Life-GAP is based on the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe study (RHINE), a large population-based questionnaire cohort study of parents and offspring, with a 30-year follow-up of the parents being conducted in 2020. We will enrich these data with unique data from national registries (cause of death, birth-, prescription- and hospital data), and with environmental exposure data (greenness, NO2, PM2.5, PM10, O3 and black carbon) assigned to each participant far back in time based on residential address history. The lifespan cohort includes 21659 participants aged 20-44 years at baseline, and the generation study includes 8260 offspring with one parent from the lifespan cohort.
News and results from Life-GAP will be posted here during the project period, see relevant links below.