PANAMA

Funded by

ANSES: French Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire (ANSES-23-EST-177) & Societat Catalana de Pneumologia (SOCAP)

While the individual effects of air pollution exposure and physical activity levels on respiratory and cardiovascular health in adults with and without chronic respiratory disease are well reported separately, only limited information is available on the combined health effects of physical activity and air pollution exposure.

In PANAMA, we will introduce the concept of IDoAP (Inhale Dose of Air Pollution), a novel air pollution exposure quantification method that quantifies the volume of pollutants entering the airways and lungs over a period of time. It can be calculated as the product of inspired air (i.e., minute ventilation) and ambient air pollution. Therefore, it has the potential to describe the combined health risks from air pollution and benefits from physical activity, and work as a parameter that leverages advances in wearable technology and biostatistics.

PANAMA will follow adults with and without chronic respiratory diseases in both Barcelona (Spain) and Nice (France), and it is the result of a collaboration between ISGlobal (Barcelona), the Université Côte d’Azur (Nice), and INSERM (Grenoble).

In three work packages, we aim to:

• Generate and validate minute ventilation algorithms for adults living with or without chronic respiratory conditions (i.e., asthma or COPD)
• Evaluate the impact of different air pollution assessment methods and temporal aggregations on the IDoAP estimate
• Assess the acute, short-, and long-term effects of IDoAP on respiratory and cardiovascular health in adults living with or without chronic respiratory conditions

Finally, aiming to better understand the multidimensional experiences of performing physical activity in urban environments from the patients’ perspective, we have nested a qualitative research project (i.e., PANAMA_quali) in Barcelona, consisting of in-depth interviews with individuals living with either COPD or adult asthma.

The expansion of research tools to investigate the combined effects of physical activity and air pollution exposure will open new doors for research. The validated IDoAP algorithms from PANAMA will be made publicly available via Github and through peer-reviewed publications. Moreover, PANAMA will build partnerships with industry and city partners. This can include the implementation of public and green spaces, the adjustment of clinical management guidelines, and change of individual health behaviours in accordance with our research findings.

Reducing chronic respiratory disease means an improvement of quality of life on an individual level. On a global level, treatment costs can be saved and re-invested in the promotion of the health benefits from physical activity, the reduction of air pollution, and healthy, sustainable, and active urban and rural spaces.

Total Funding 

199.964€