EXPONIT

Duration

01/01/2020 - 01/12/2025

Coordinator

Manolis Kogevinas / Barbara Harding

Funded by

EU Horizon 2020 grant agreement No 874703 and FIS PI22/01683

Prior research suggests that long-term disruption of circadian rhythms may be associated with a wide range of common non-communicable diseases and impact healthy aging. To further our understanding of how night shift work-related exposures as well as outside lifestyle and environmental factors impact overall health, we will be examining a wide range of exposures, biomarkers and outcomes among participants who are engaged in night shift work (exposed) and among day shift workers (non-exposed) as a comparison group. At the end of the study, we will provide guidelines for the best adaptation to night shift work.

This study will be conducted by researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) with the support of the Department de Treball de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Similar studies will also be conducted in Sweden, The Netherlands and Denmark (EPHOR Study). Together this is expected to be the largest study to date with this level of information on the working life exposome among night shift workers. Samples will be analyzed in the Municipal Institute of Medical Research (IMIM-Hospital del Mar) and the University of Leuven (Belgium). The study is funded by the European Union.

EXPONIT Project is the name we use in Spain to refer to one of the Work Packages (WP) within the EPHOR Project. The EXPONIT Project focuses specifically on analyzing and studying how night shift work affects the circadian rhythms and health of workers.

Main goal

The main objective of the EXPONIT study is to examine how environmental, lifestyle and work-place exposures impact cardiovascular health, cardiometabolic health and aging. Of key interest is how exposure to light during the nighttime, and the corresponding circadian rhythm disruption, impacts health.

We plan to enroll a total of 400 participants from Spain in this study, including particpants from the Transportes Metropolitanos de Barcelona (TMB), Clinic Barcelona hospital, and Parc de Salut Mar. Half of the participants will be night shift workers and half of the participants will be day shift workers.

Research Group

Environment and Health over the Lifecourse (EVOLVE) (Manolis Kogevinas group)

Follow the project on social media

#ExponitProject