The Life-GAP project
The "Lifespan and inter-generational respiratory effects of exposures to greenness and air pollution" (Life-GAP) project will study how air pollution affects respiratory health over time and across generations, with particular focus on low exposure levels. We will also investigate potential beneficial effects of greenness: an exposure that has been suggested to improve certain aspects of health but where little so far is known regarding respiratory effects.
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Life-GAP project
Life-GAP will focus on numerous outcomes of lung health: symptoms, diseases, medication use, hospitalisations - as well as factors at birth affecting lung health later in life (birth weight, pre-term birth), and the end-stage outcome: mortality. We will investigate both associations and population attributable risks, to be able to assess how much of the lung outcomes could be avoided if pollution exposures were removed.
Life-GAP is based on the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe study (RHINE), a large population-based questionnaire cohort study of parents and offspring, with a 30-year follow-up of the parents being conducted in 2020. We will enrich these data with unique data from national registries (cause of death, birth-, prescription- and hospital data), and with environmental exposure data (greenness, NO2, PM2.5, PM10, O3 and black carbon) assigned to each participant far back in time based on residential address history. The lifespan cohort includes 21659 participants aged 20-44 years at baseline, and the generation study includes 8260 offspring with one parent from the lifespan cohort.
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News and results from Life-GAP will be posted here during the project period, see relevant links below.
Publications from the Life-GAP project听
Sinsamala RM, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Accordini S, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Holm M, Janson C, Malinovschi A, Markevych I, Orru H, Oudin A, Real FG, Sigsgaard T, Skulstad SM, Svanes C, Johannessen A. . Environ Res. 2025 Mar 6;274:121328. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.121328.
Xu S, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Benediktsdottir B, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Heinrich J, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Modig L, Orru H, Schl眉nssen V, Sigsgaard T, Johannessen A. . Environ Res. 2025 Jan 23:120938. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.120938.
Xu S, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Benediktsdottir B, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Heinrich J, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Modig L, Orru H, Schl眉nssen V, Sigsgaard T, Johannessen A.听. Environ Res. 2024 Sep 15;257:119240. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.119240.听
Sinsamala RM, Johannessen A, Bertelsen RJ, Accordini S, Brandt J, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Orru H, Real FG, Sigsgaard T, Skulstad SM, Svanes C, Marcon A.听. Environ Epidemiol. 2024 Jun 21;8(4):e318. doi: 10.1097/EE9.0000000000000318.
Xu S, Marcon A, Bertelsen RJ, Benediktsdottir B, Brandt J, Engemann K, Frohn LM, Geels C, Gislason T, Heinrich J, Holm M, Janson C, Markevych I, Modig L, Orru H, Schl眉nssen V, Sigsgaard T, Johannessen A.听. Environ Int. 2023 Nov;181:108257. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2023.108257.听
Dissertations from the Life-GAP project听
Xu S. Effects of long-term air pollution and greenness exposures on mortality and respiratory health. The Life-GAP project.听University of听Bergen, Norway, 2024.听.