Helping provide clean air for Europe

Motivated to improve the understanding surrounding environmental pollution globally, IOM contributed to The Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) programme; a European Union funded review of air quality standards. Alongside AEA Technology, IOM assessed the literature and offered its views on a range of relevant topics including how many deaths and diseases in Europe may be caused by air pollution.

The combined methodology to assess the health impacts of air pollution proposed by IOM was acknowledged to be robust and was later used in other assessments in Europe and further afield. Overall the results from the CAFE programme showed that the health and environmental benefits of interventions to reduce pollution far outweighed the implementation costs. The evidence-based assessment strengthened the negotiating position of those in the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the member states who wanted better air quality, and subsequently better health throughout Europe.