• National Institute for Health and Welfare, Kuopio, Finland
• Fundació Centre de Recerca en Epidemiologia Ambiental (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain
• Helmholtz Zentrum München - Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt, Munchen, Germany
• University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland
• Universität für Bodenkultur Wien - University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria
• Lunds Universitet, Lund, Sweden
• Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, United Kingdom

The overall aim of the HITEA (Health Effects of Indoor Pollutants: Integrating microbial, toxicological and epidemiological approaches) study is to identify the role of indoor biological agents in development of long term respiratory, inflammatory and allergic health impacts among children. The focus is on microbial exposures due to dampness problems of buildings; in addition, the role of allergens, chemicals, cleaning agents, traffic exhaust and poor ventilation will be studied. The study includes a cross-sectional and a longitudinal study in school buildings in three European countries as well as new analyses of already existing birth cohorts. Since some important aspects are difficult to study among children (e.g., invasive sampling), an adult cohort with similar exposures is also included.

Microbiological, toxicological, analytical and immunological techniques will be used to study the exposures and their short term and long term impacts on health and the mechanisms behind. Data on determinants of the variation of indoor microbial agents across Europe will be provided. Emphasis is on respiratory health and on cytotoxicity, inflammatory and oxidative stress related mechanisms of the health effects. Exposure studies will focus on PM, NOx and microbial agents including endotoxin, glucans, EPS and 16SRNA to identify specific species. Epidemiological surveys of school children and teachers are done in three different countries (Finland, The Netherlands, Spain).The additional funding from Nederlands Astma Fonds is used to measure the allergen load in all participating schools in the Netherland and determine the effect of this allergen load on asthmatic symptoms and allergies in both students and teachers. Dust samples of existing birth cohorts (PIAMA (The Netherlands), LISA (Germany), INMA (Menorca, Spain) and LUKAS (Finland)) and the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) will be analysed.

The HITEA project is described in detail on the HITEA website: www.hitea.eu

• The project makes use of long term exposure estimates from ESCAPE.
• The project will also make use of previously collected data from PIAMA.