Air pollution & distribution of related health impact and welfare in Nordic Countries (NordicWelfAir)

Air pollution has serious impacts on human health, wellbeing and welfare. The main challenge is to understand how to regulate air pollution in an optimal way both on global and local scales.

The aim of the project is to link detailed information of the spatio-temporal distribution of air pollution levels with register data for mortality and morbidity in the Nordic countries to gain new understanding of the various health impacts from different kinds of air pollution from different sources.

This will provide the basic understanding needed for policy making of strategies to optimally reduce the air pollution challenge and to assess the related impacts on the distribution of health impacts and related societal costs and welfare.

The results from the project will be used in both a Nordic as well as global perspective to improve the health and welfare by finding the optimal solutions to societal and public health challenges from air pollution through high-quality research. The study will provide a Nordic contribution to international research on the topics of environmental equality and justice within the area of air quality related risks, amenities and wellbeing.

The project was coordinated by Aarhus University in collaboration with 16 partners from other Nordic countries:

Partners

The research collaboration will run for five years and has 16 partners from the Nordic countries.

The project is coordinated by Prof. Jørgen Brandt and Senior Scientist Camilla Geels, Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University.

All the partners:

Denmark

Aarhus University, Department of Environmental Science (AU-ENVS) (all WPs)

Aarhus University, Department of Public Health (AU-DPH) (WP3)

Aarhus University, CIRRAU (AU-CIRRAU) (WP3)

Danish Cancer Society Research Center (DCRC) (WP3)

Finland

Finnish environment institute (SYKE) (WP1 & WP5)

Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) (WP2)

National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) (WP3 & WP4)

Sweden

Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) (WP1 & WP2)

Umeå University (UMU) (WP3)

Swedish Environmental Research Institute Ltd. (IVL) (WP4)

Norway

Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) (WP1)

Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) (WP5)

Vista Analysis (Vista) (WP4)

Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) (WP3)

Iceland

The National University Hospital/University of Iceland (Landspitali) (WP3)

University of Iceland (UI) (WP1 and WP2)