ESCAPE - European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects
Involved scientists
• Project coordinator at the IMIBE: Dr. Barbara Hoffmann MD MPH
• Collaborators at the IMIBE: Dr. Susanne Moebus MPH , Dr. Michael Nonnemacher, Sabine Hertel
• Coordinator of ESCAPE: Prof. Bert Brunekreef, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Duration: 2008-2012
Funding: EU, FP7 program
ESCAPE is a collaboration of European cohort studies for quantification of effects of long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution on human health. The background is that current European assessments of the long-term health impact of air pollution are largely based on non-European epidemiological studies. Also, several new hypotheses regarding specific health effects of air pollution have been formulated in recent years, and the ESCAPE project will test the most important of these. Last, the ESCAPE project will largely focus on effects of within-city contrasts in air pollution. Methods to do this have been largely pioneered in Europe in the last decade, and the project will be at the methodological cutting edge worldwide for this.
ESCAPE will develop a single methodology for assessing within-city or within-area contrasts in long-term avarage concentrations of airborne particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. Airborne particulate matter will be characterized as inhalable (PM10) and respirable (PM2.5) particles as well as ‘soot’ and elemental composition. Both NO and NO2 will be measured in view of changing NO/NO2 ratios in primary traffic emissions which may affect compliance with the European legislation with respect to NO2 which will come into force in 2010.
Within this project, investigators from the University of Duisburg-Essen will focus on the cardiovascular effects of long-term exposure to air pollution. We make use of the data from the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study, a prospective cohort study that started in 2000, comprising data from 4814 randomly chosen participants from the cities of Mülheim, Essen, and Bochum.
