Air Quality and Health Dataspace (EIRENE)

This use case builds air quality and health dataspace by integrating real-time emissions data, IoT monitoring, and AI-driven simulations. The EIRENE Use Case will facilitate the development of advanced technologies and complementary services on the characterization of complex environmental exposures, the exposome, and their impact on the European population.

The SAGE (Sustainable Green Europe Data Space) project targets the four strategic pillars in the European Green Deal— Zero Pollution, Climate Adaptation, Biodiversity, and the Circular Economy Action Plan, by implementing a rich portfolio of use cases in each of them.

The project demonstrates a total of 10 pilot use cases to foster data-driven sustainability solutions across biodiversity, climate, circular economy, and pollution monitoring​. Below you can read about one of these pilots. 

The overview of all use cases can be found here: Use-cases

Background:
The exposome is a concept in environmental health that refers to the totality of environmental exposures an individual experiences from conception onwards. It includes the whole range of exposures throughout life that might influence health not only pollutants, but also factors such as lifestyle, diet, infections, stress, and social environments.
The exposome may be considered to be the environmental counterpart to the genome, understanding of both is required to understand health and ill-health.

Use Case Objective:

The EIRENE Use Case will facilitate the development of advanced technologies and complementary services on the characterization of complex environmental exposures, the exposome, and their impact on the European population. This will promote European excellence in Environmental & Health research by providing European researchers with transnational and/or virtual access to harmonised capacities, unique services, and comprehensive data addressing the current and future needs of public authorities.

The Use Case will build on previous European projects and initiatives. EIRENE’s interactions with research infrastructures such as ECRIN, EATRIS, BBMRI, ELIXIR, ACTRIS, or SHARE, create synergies that enhance the overall research capacity. The project’s membership in the ENVRI Board, the Life Sciences RI Strategy Board, and the ERIC Forum fosters collaboration and coordination among European RIs, ensuring that EIRENE benefits from shared expertise and strategic alignment. Collaborations with joint programmers and partnerships such as HBM4EU and PARC have significantly contributed to the development of necessary capacities, the recognition of harmonized tools and approaches, and their employment in pan-European studies.
Partnerships with European agencies such as EFSA, EChA, EEA, and JRC are crucial for incorporating the exposome concept into regulatory decisions, enhancing the relevance and impact of EIRENE’s research. EIRENE’s involvement with European research clusters EHEN, EURION, ASPIS, CUSP, or IDEAL as well as collaboration with the US initiatives (NEXUS), strengthens its research impact and fosters innovation. Coordination and support actions like IHEN and SPHERA aim to develop a global vision and international cooperation in the exposome field and provide opportunities for global outreach to stakeholders and potential users.

Data Providers


(i) Chemicals:

(ii) Air Quality data

(iii) Health Data

Benefits:

The Use Case will provide access to metadata and data regarding health, air quality and exposure to toxins. Data must be temporally and spatially resolved in order to use statistical tools to investigate links and correlations between air quality and both short and long-term health outcomes. The goal is to pass from data to knowledge to understanding and where possible to provide with due scientific rigour, statistically demonstrable causality.

Understanding how exposure to pollution and toxins impacts health status, and thus being able to avoid or reduce the negative effects of exposure leads to a range of benefits.

The step difference which the study of the exposome, compared to traditional toxicological studies is that it allows, given enough data over a long enough time period, the effect of combinations of factors to be evaluated. This then gives a clearer picture of how a poor health status may arise and thus the underlying causes may be more precisely addressed.

In terms of benefits:

EIRENE also offers numerous options to support data-driven decision-making and policymaking. Harmonized sample and data collection methods, will improve knowledge and understanding of disease etiology, help to identify factors affecting health and enable better prevention. This will also significantly improve the outcomes of the national and European biomonitoring efforts.


Improved data sharing and integration between various human and environmental surveys is another important impact on future infrastructural landscapes, enabling joint interpretation of data across sectors, disciplines, and multiple stakeholders and the development of new prediction models, prevention, and intervention strategies. The outcomes of such efforts will be available to both the scientific community and policymakers to inform evidence-based decision-making for the adequate protection of human health and better healthcare.

Expected Results:

An Air Quality Data Space (AQDS)—a federated, interoperable digital ecosystem for collecting, sharing, and using air quality data across Europe—can yield substantial socioeconomic benefits:

Thus, An Air Quality Data Space is not just a technical infrastructure—it’s a strategic enabler of health protection, innovation, environmental justice, and economic efficiency. Its creation is essential to deliver sustainable socioeconomic benefits by turning fragmented air quality data into actionable intelligence for governments, businesses, and citizens.