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What is SNAP?
SNAP has been proposed by representatives from the Institute of Environmental
Medicine at the Karolinska Institute, Occupational and Environmental Health at
Stockholm County Council, Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the
Universities of Gothenburg and Lund, respectivily, Air and Noise Control at the
Stockholm Environmental Protection Administration, the Stockholm - Uppsala Air
Quality Management Asociation,
and the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL). The name is an acronym of
the english titel "Swedish National
Air Pollution and Health Effects Program". The
historical background of SNAP is the revision of the national environmental research funding that took place
at the Swedish EPA during the end of the 1990s. This led to the start of a
number of large national research programs within the environmental research
field. SNAP is one of the research programs that the Swedish EPA is funding.
Background
Health effects from air pollution have again emerged as an important public
health issue, in spite of decades of successful work in Sweden and elsewhere to
decrease emissions, especially from oil and coal combustion. Evidence is
accumulating that also the relatively low levels of air pollution present in
Sweden need to be further lowered in order to prevent respiratory and
cardiovascular diseases, and maybe even premature death. The complex content
mixture of ambient air pollution and the diverse health effects involved
emphasize the need for a multidisciplinary approach in this scientific research
field. Furthermore, a close interaction between science and policy makers is
needed for a successful preventive public health work, which motivates national
support for the development of an integrated air pollution and health research
program.
SNAP builds on future and ongoing research in participating centers and covers
characterization of the human exposure to air pollution from different sources,
and quantification of health effects, all aiming at facilitating risk assessment.
It is focused on the general public, with special attention to populations at
elevated risk – because of high vulnerability or high exposure levels. Important
additional information on mechanisms will be generated in controlled
experiments. SNAP will have a multidisciplinary character, with involvement of
leading Swedish groups in the field of air pollution and health. The work at
each center will be performed in distinct projects, mostly with shorter time
frames than SNAP as such. Some of the projects have full or partial funding
already available. Even fully funded projects are included in order to present
an integrated view of the research activities. To further assure that SNAP is
comprehensive, also other leading researchers in the air pollution field will be
stimulated to contribute with own projects by reserving a substantial part of
the funding to a “free funding part”. Great care will be taken to develop
interaction and synergism between all projects within SNAP, regardless of
funding status. The program application can be found
as a pdf-file.
Aims
The principal scope of SNAP is to provide new information pertinent to the
quantitative risk assessment of adverse health effects from air pollution. The
information will be useful in the development of national and international
guidelines as well as other preventive measures both on local and global scales.
A secondary scope is to create and improve co-operation among national research
teams within the field of air pollution. Thus, great effort will be given to
repeated communication and possibilities for interaction with national, regional
and local authorities, institutions, and industry, as well as with other
researchers. SNAP will also promote training of researchers and experts in this
field, and thus contribute to a high quality of the research on environment and
health in Sweden.
The Program will specifically aim at addressing the following issues:
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To develop, improve and validate models for exposure assessment in
epidemiologic air pollution studies.
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To evaluate the health effects associated with different pollutants in urban
air, and quantitatively assess the risk for various health outcomes related
to different air pollutants.
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To estimate the national public health impact of exposure to ambient air
pollution.
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To explore different aspects of exposure to air pollution on health, e.g.
different dose metrics and time-windows of exposure.
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To study the impact on health outcomes in both single- and multi-pollutant
models.
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To identify susceptible subgroups for health effects from air pollution.
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To investigate potential interactions with other factors in relation to
health effects from air pollution.
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To elucidate some biological mechanisms for an association between air
pollution and various health outcomes.
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To produce, disseminate, and communicate valid and high quality data on air
pollution and health to be used by national, regional, and local authorities
and others in their preventive public health work.
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To promote co-operation and integration between Swedish research groups, and
promote their involvement in international collaborations.
Organisation
The program management is organized in a Program Directorate, a Program Board,
and three Working Groups (see figure below). The
Program Directorate is constituted by the applicants and led by the program
director. It will be responsible for the continuous coordination, including
consultations on project contracts. The proposed research will be performed
mainly by the applicants and the co-applicants, but also by other groups. The
principle investigators of each single project and those who were actively
involved in the planning of SNAP, form the
Program Board. The main stakeholders and others have been invited to
participate in this board, which allows the Program Board to have the
function of a steering group. There are representatives of the Swedish EPA
and other authorities, as well as representatives of industry, in particular
from the transport and energy sectors, and the municipalities. The Program Board plans the program activities including recurrent dissemination of the
results, and is responsible for mid-term and final reporting of results, and
phasing out of the Program. In addition, the board will develop criteria for
requirements on project contracts. The Program Board will meet twice yearly to
keep all interested parties updated on the progress of the Program and deal with
matters of principal interest, such as evaluation of the relevance of
applications for free funding, the integration of new groups into the Program,
and reporting to the Environmental Research Board. The
working groups deal with similar topics across the single project groups,
and are responsible for development of reports, as well as serving as expert
groups within SNAP regarding the special topics. Topics that initially form the
basis for such groups include exposure, GIS, and epidemiology.
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Karolinska Institute
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