CINTESIS integrates European Project to Assess Environmental Pollution Impact on Health

“BEST-COST”, a new CINTESIS research project, will assess the socio-economic impact of environmental pollution in Europe and contribute to policies and practices that reduce the disease “burden” and promote health.

The four-year project is partly funded by the European Union with four million euros. The consortium is made up of 17 partners from ten European countries and the United States. In Portugal, the project will be coordinated by CINTESIS, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP), and the Egas Moniz School of Health.

“While there is growing concern around the implication of environmental stressors on human health, the lack of concrete evidence on the socioeconomic cost limits the ability of policy makers to act,” the researchers report.

To help address this problem, “BEST-COST” will develop a new methodological framework to quantify the burden, cost, and social and health inequalities caused by air and noise pollution. The ultimate goal is to foster “stronger policy initiatives to better protect the health of populations,” the researchers explain.

In this way, the project will enable health professionals and policy makers to adopt a harmonized approach and better use of health and economic models in policy impact assessments.

“In practice, we intend to contribute with new policies and practices that reduce the burden of disease and, at the same time, promote healthier, more equitable and sustainable living and working environments”, foresee the project coordinators.

“Translating health into numbers is always a great challenge and that is why different approaches will be considered,” reveals João Vasco Santos, leader of the Health Economics working group.

For the CINTESIS researcher and professor at FMUP, “knowing better how different populations in European countries are willing to pay for health is a big step towards addressing the economic challenges in the definition of health policies.

According to data from the European Environment Agency, air pollution and noise pollution are responsible, respectively, for about 400 thousand and 12 thousand premature deaths in Europe alone.

At the end of the project, the “BEST-COST” results will be made available as open access tools and tested in five European countries, namely Portugal, Belgium, Estonia, France and Norway, before becoming transferable on a larger scale throughout Europe.