Exposome expectations in child health

Child health depends not only on the quality of a healthcare system, but also on the magnitude of negative or positive influencing factors, such as social and environmental factors. Identifying such stressors and reducing their impact through adequate policies can improve child health on local, national, or even global scales. One innovative way of identifying such stressors is the exposome approach. The Exposome approach is the characterization of the non-genetic drivers of health and disease. The Exposome comprises aspects of the Built environment (characteristics of where we live);

the Social environment (with whom we interact, social networks and income); the Physio-Chemical environment (chemical and environmental factors we are exposed to) and the Lifestyle/Food environment (what we eat, how much we exercise) over the entire life-course.

The workshop aims are to analyze how monitoring data from exposome research can be best used for improving health policy in relation to improving (environmental) health policy in relation to children’s mental health. By taking a deep dive into solution-finding, we will explore creative solutions to better utilize existing exposome data from digital data platforms, such as cohort data. And to facilitate working across disciplines using innovative tools of working transdisciplinary across research, policymakers and other professionals. Furthermore, we have to look on how to enhance, harmonize and interpretation of data on child health.

Teams will define and explore one grand challenge: How to utilize the exposome approach for improving (mental) health in children?

There are two sub-questions to be answered:

1) How to develop multifactorial and transdisciplinary research approaches to address the impact of exposures (e.g., social inequity, noise, air quality) on the (mental) health of children?

2) How to use the developed multifactorial and transdisciplinary approaches for crafting policies and programmes (e.g., interventions, implementation) that address the impacts of exposures on the (mental) health of children?

The workshop outcomes are:

1) a workshop paper describing the analysis of the grand challenge (by the end of the workshop) and of the two sub-questions. This paper is based on the scientific content of the workshop on the needs and expectations of the exposome approach in child environmental and mental health. This paper will undoubtedly include suggestions for scientific papers.

2) the launch of a scientific and policy network on children’s mental health and exposome research.

This workshop will be considered a success if we conclude with a well-developed, detailed written workshop paper to address the challenge and the two sub-questions. And if we have formed a network of scientists and stakeholders to collaborate in the future on the topic of this workshop.