National Research Programme for Environmental and Occupational Health: results of the 2022 calls for research proposals
Forty-two research projects have been selected by ANSES under the 2022 PNR EST call for proposals. They will receive a total of €7.5 million in funding. This research will provide new knowledge on environmental risks to human health, in the general population or at work, as well as on risks to ecosystems.
Contributing knowledge to ANSES's areas of expertise
These projects will provide new knowledge in ANSES's different areas of expertise, and in particular on health risks to the general population and in the workplace, as well as on risks to ecosystems and the quality of different environments. They involve multidisciplinary teams, including from the human and social sciences.
More specifically, the projects selected for 2022 relate to one or more types of environmental and occupational exposure:
Twenty projects concern chemical agents, including nine projects on endocrine disruptors;
Six projects will address emerging, unexplored or new issues, including one on nitrous oxide and two on micro- and nanoplastics;
Six projects concern radiofrequencies, four of which deal specifically with electromagnetic fields related to the deployment of 5G;
Seven relate to occupational exposure and occupational health, three of which focus on new ways of working or new forms of work organisation, such as teleworking and prolonged screen use;
Lastly, ten projects deal with bacterial and viral pathogens, five of which concern environmental quality and two of which concern vector control.
Some of these projects will lead to a better understanding of the links between environmental exposure and diseases such as cancer, respiratory disorders or scleroderma, an autoimmune disease.
In addition, 12 projects will contribute to further knowledge of the exposome.
Thirty-eight projects will be funded by ANSES (€6.8M), three will be supported by the AVIESAN multi-agency thematic institute for cancer, as part of the French Cancer Plan (€0.56M), and one project by the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) (€0.21M).