Applying the exposome concept to working life health

Abstract

The EPHOR Consortium, Rob Stierum a loskeletal disorders. 4 Conservative estimates of the global burden of occupational disease vary between 3% and 7% of global mortality, translating to 1.5 to 2.3 million deaths each year. [5][6][7] In the European Union (EU), approximately 300,000 work-related deaths per year are estimated resulting in economic losses of Abstract. Exposures at work have a major impact on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Current risk reduction policies and strategies are informed by existing scientific evidence, which is limited due to the challenges of studying the complex relationship between exposure at work and outside work and health. We define the working life exposome as all occupational and related nonoccupational exposures. The latter includes nonoccupational exposures that may be directly or indirectly influenced by or interact with the working life of the individual in their relation to health. The Exposome Project for Health and Occupational Research aims to advance knowledge on the complex working life exposures in relation to disease beyond the single high exposure-single health outcome paradigm, mapping and relating interrelated exposures to inherent biological pathways, key body functions, and health. This will be achieved by combining (1) large-scale harmonization and pooling of existing European cohorts systematically looking at multiple exposures and diseases, with (2) the collection of new high-resolution external and internal exposure data. Methods and tools to characterize the working life exposome will be developed and applied, including sensors, wearables, a harmonized job exposure matrix (EuroJEM), noninvasive biomonitoring, omics, data mining, and (bio)statistics. The toolbox of developed methods and knowledge will be made available to policy makers, occupational health practitioners, and scientists. Advanced knowledge on working life exposures in relation to NCDs will serve as a basis for evidence-based and cost-effective preventive policies and actions. The toolbox will also enable future scientists to further expand the working life exposome knowledge base.

A blueprint for a new commercial driving epidemiology: An emerging paradigm grounded in integrative exposome and network epistemologies

“…Two research groups are presently grappling with these ideas in the context of work, health, and safety. First, empirical efforts of European Union scientists have advanced the groundbreaking Exposome Project for Health and Occupational Research (EPHOR), 56 and are currently collecting lifetime, diverse occupational and related nonoccupational data to delineate working people's health. Second, going a few steps further, evolving programmatic and empirical efforts of scientists from the U.S. are exploring how integrative exposome and network science‐based frameworks can unravel lifetime health and safety risks of working people.…”

The indispensable whole of work and population health: How the working life exposome can advance empirical research, policy, and action

“…Second, these conceptualizations have, in turn, impaired methodological frameworks, leading to: (a) mainly cross-sectional, individual-level, and smaller-scale research designs; (b) data collection methods heavily based on traditional subjective approaches (eg, surveys) resulting in insufficient data; and (c) data that mainly include already known higher-risk exposures (eg, irregular shiftwork) unfolding in the workplace, and common or hard outcomes (eg, hospitalizations), with infrequent inclusion of potentially invaluable, rare, or lower-prevalence exposures and outcomes ( 2 ). Along these lines, methodological approaches have also been hampered by what is feasible in the context of the prevailing paradigm and practices, funding, time constraints, and available technology.…”

Physiology and Biomarkers for Surveillance of Occupational Lung Disease

“…101 Because of its potential, EBC is being explored in large population studies (e.g., in the European Union EPHOR project [Exposome Project for Health and Occupational Research], which will significantly advance information on its applicability in this field. 102…”