Health and Environment Alliance - Human biomonitoring at European level takes shape

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Human biomonitoring at European level takes shape

A consortium to perform human biomonitoring at European scale (COPHES) met in Brussels, Belgium on 1st and 2nd December 2009. This consortium comprises 35 partners coming from 27 European countries and includes governments, research institutes, the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and the European Chemical Industry council (CEFIC).

The COPHES project objective is to perform actions designed to develop functional framework that contributes to definition, organization, and management of a coherent approach towards human biomonitoring (HBM) in Europe, including strategies for data interpretation and integration with environmental and health data.

The Consortium would also:
Investigate what is needed to advance and improve comparability of HBM data across the EU;
Provide training and capacity building promoting knowledge and experience exchange and development in the field of human biomonitoring within Europe; and
Communicate and disseminate information, results, and key messages to all stakeholders from the public to the policy makers.

Also a potential role of HBM in supporting and evaluating current and future policy making and policies, such as REACH, and for environmental health awareness raising will be promoted within this project.

COPHES will be funded by the EU under the 7th Framework Programme of the Directorate General Research. More information on this project you can find at www.cophes.eu (forthcoming).

Related information and articles:
Chemicals Health Monitor - Section on Human biomonitoring in Europe
Why human biomonitoring is important
European Human Biomonitoring
Cefic LRI - Biomonitoring: finally a European approach

Written on 18 December 2009.