Exposing the Link between Health and the Environment

An LWEC accredited centre provides evidence for London’s air quality strategy.

Is noise from aircraft and road traffic linked to rates of cardio-vascular disease in West London? How do our daily routines affect the risk to our health posed by air pollution? These are just two of the questions now being explored by the LWEC-accredited Centre for Environment and Health, which is jointly supported by the Medical Research Council and the Health Protection Agency.

“A recent paper in The Lancet implicated environmental factors in the global diabetes epidemic,” says Dr David Stokes, the Centre’s Science Manager. “Clearly, it’s critical for everyone from planners and policy-makers to business and industry to develop a better understanding of the connection between health and pollution – and that’s precisely what we’re doing.”

Established in 2009, the Centre binds together around 300 scientists at universities and research institutions across London, providing a cross-disciplinary framework focusing on three major research themes: low-level environmental contaminants and health; nanoparticles and health; and air pollution, noise and health. Work in the third of these is already feeding into the Mayor of London’s Air Quality Strategy, which aims to improve Londoners’ well-being by cleaning up the capital’s air. 

“Fundamentally, we’re shedding new light on the ‘exposome’,” says Dr Stokes. “The counterpoint to the human genome, this term refers to all the external, rather than internal genetic, factors that determine a person’s health. Exposure to the environment accounts for around 90% of our health/sickness experience. So the exposome is a concept that’s bound to develop increasing currency throughout society – especially in the context of a changing environment.”