The Life-GAP project

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, PM_2.5, 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.

Sinsamala RM, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Accordini S, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Holm M, Janson C, Malinovschi A, Markevych I, Orru H, Oudin A, Real FG, Sigsgaard T, Skulstad SM, Svanes C, Johannessen A. Associations of parental air pollution and greenness exposures with offspring asthma outcomes. Environ Res. 2025 Mar 6;274:121328. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.121328.

Xu S, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Benediktsdottir B, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Heinrich J, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Modig L, Orru H, Schlünssen V, Sigsgaard T, Johannessen A. Long-term exposure to air pollution and greenness in association with respiratory emergency room visits and hospitalizations: The Life-GAP project. Environ Res. 2025 Jan 23:120938. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.120938.

Xu S, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Benediktsdottir B, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Heinrich J, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Modig L, Orru H, Schlünssen V, Sigsgaard T, Johannessen A. Associations of long-term exposure to air pollution and greenness with incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Northern Europe: The Life-GAP project. Environ Res. 2024 Sep 15;257:119240. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.119240. 

Sinsamala RM, Johannessen A, Bertelsen RJ, Accordini S, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Orru H, Real FG, Sigsgaard T, Skulstad SM, Svanes C, Marcon A. Pregnancy outcomes as related to in utero exposure to air pollution and greenness: The Life-GAP Project. Environ Epidemiol. 2024 Jun 21;8(4):e318. doi: 10.1097/EE9.0000000000000318.

Xu S, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Benediktsdottir B, Brandt J, Engemann K, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Heinrich J, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Modig L, Orru H, Schlünssen V, Sigsgaard T, Johannessen A. Long-term exposure to low-level air pollution and greenness and mortality in Northern Europe. The Life-GAP project. Environ Int. 2023 Nov;181:108257. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2023.108257. 

Xu S. Effects of long-term air pollution and greenness exposures on mortality and respiratory health. The Life-GAP project. University of Bergen, Norway, 2024. https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/handle/11250/3168696.