Understanding the Exposome: Priorities for Policy and Practice

LongITools policy briefing highlights call to action for policymakers

Despite medical advances, more than half a billion people around the world are affected by cardiovascular diseases. Efforts continue to focus heavily on treatment, yet many of the risks come from the environment around us. Environmental factors represent a major opportunity to change the course of disease by addressing modifiable risk factors. Pollution, poor diets, limited green space, unsafe housing, and chronic stress all increase cardiovascular risk, especially for people living in difficult circumstances. The problem will not go away on its own, and due to the constant interplay between population health and the environment, the challenges for societies continue to grow. Therefore, we need to shift focus – not only treating illness but preventing it, by addressing what shapes health across our lives: the exposome.

In our new LongITools policy brief, This policy brief draws on insights from the LongITools project to inform policymakers about the exposome and its relevance for preventive, equitable, and effective health policy. It outlines key policy priorities, explains why they matter, and sets out what is needed to better address the environmental and societal factors that shape health across the life-course.

Our six calls to action:

➡️ Make the exposome central to health policy
➡️ Apply a life-course approach to policy
➡️ Make health and environment data FAIR-ER
➡️ Accelerate research into real-world impact
➡️ Deliver timely, targeted interventions
➡️ Act on environmental health inequalities

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