Studies exploring the role of diet during pregnancy are still scarce, in part due to the complexity of measuring diet and to the lack of valid instruments. The aim of this study was to examine the reproducibility and validity (against biochemical biomarkers) of a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) in pregnant women.

We studied the potential synergy between air pollution and meteorology and their impact on mortality in nine European cities with data from 2004 to 2010. We used daily series of Apparent Temperature (AT), measurements of particulate matter (PM₁₀), ozone (O₃), and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and total non-accidental, cardiovascular, and respiratory deaths. We applied Poisson regression for city-specific analysis and random effects meta-analysis to combine city-specific results, separately for the warm and cold seasons. In the warm season, the percentage increase in all deaths from natural causes per °C increase in AT tended to be greater during high ozone days, although this was only significant for all ages when all causes were considered. On low ozone days, the increase in the total daily number of deaths was 1.84% (95% CI 0.87, 2.82), whilst it was 2.20% (95% CI 1.28, 3.13) in the high ozone days per 1 °C increase in AT. Interaction with PM₁₀ was significant for cardiovascular (CVD) causes of death for all ages (2.24% on low PM₁₀ days (95% CI 1.01, 3.47) whilst it is 2.63% (95% CI 1.57, 3.71) on high PM₁₀ days) and for ages 75+. In days with heat waves, no consistent pattern of interaction was observed. For the cold period, no evidence for synergy was found. In conclusion, some evidence of interactive effects between hot temperature and the levels of ozone and PM₁₀ was found, but no consistent synergy could be identified during the cold season.

Maternal exposure to air pollution has been related to fetal growth in a number of recent scientific studies. The objective of this study was to assess the association between exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and anthropometric measures at birth in a cohort in Valencia, Spain.

The European project PHASE aims to evaluate patterns of change in the temperature–mortality relationship and in the number of deaths attributable to heat in nine European cities in two periods, before and after summer 2003 (1996–2002 and 2004–2010). We performed age-specific Poisson regression models separately in the two periods, controlling for seasonality, air pollution and time trends. Distributed lag non-linear models were used to estimate the Relative Risks of daily mortality for increases in mean temperature from the 75th to 99th percentile of the summer distribution for each city. In the recent period, a reduction in the mortality risk associated to heat was observed only in Athens, Rome and Paris, especially among the elderly. Furthermore, in terms of heat-attributable mortality, 985, 787 and 623 fewer deaths were estimated, respectively, in the three cities. In Helsinki and Stockholm, there is a suggestion of increased heat effect. Noteworthy is that an effect of heat was still present in the recent years in all cities, ranging from +11% to +35%. In Europe, considering the warming observed in recent decades and population ageing, effective intervention measures should be promoted across countries, especially targeting vulnerable subgroups of the population with lower adaptive resources.

Recently new European policies on ambient air quality—namely, the adoption of new standards for fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), have generated a broad debate about choosing the air quality standards that can best protect public health. The Apheis network estimated the number of potential premature deaths from all causes that could be prevented by reducing PM_2.5 annual levels to 25 μg/m3, 20 μg/m3, 15 μg/m3 and 10 μg/m3 in 26 European cities. The various PM_2.5 concentrations were chosen as different reductions based on the limit values proposed by the new European Directive, the European Parliament, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization, respectively. The Apheis network provided the health and exposure data used in this study. The concentration-response function (CRF) was derived from the paper by Pope et al (2002). If no direct PM_2.5 measurements were available, then the PM₁₀ measurements were converted to PM_2.5 using a local or an assumed European conversion factor. We performed a sensitivity analysis using assumptions for two key factors—namely, CRF and the conversion factor for PM_2.5. Specifically, using the “at least” approach, in the 26 Apheis cities with more than 40 million inhabitants, reducing annual mean levels of PM_2.5 to 15 μg/m3 could lead to a reduction in the total burden of mortality among people aged 30 years and over that would be four times greater than the reduction in mortality that could be achieved by reducing PM_2.5 levels to 25 μg/m3 (1.6% vs 0.4% reduction) and two times greater than a reduction to 20 μg/m3. The percentage reduction could grow by more than seven times if PM_2.5 levels were reduced to 10 μg/m3 (3.0% vs 0.4%). This study shows that more stringent standards need to be adopted in Europe to protect public health, as proposed by the scientific community and the World Health Organization.