WP-4 starts from the assessment of environmental contamination. The aim is to assess contamination levels of:
(a) Environmental media with which the studied population comes into contact, such as air, soil, water, settled dust and (b) several food items either through the food web (metals, pesticides, POPs) or through food contact materials (plasticisers). This will include use of (a) monitored (from the partner repository in Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France and Spain).
(b) Modeled data through the multimedia environmental modelling platform INTEGRA. The latter will also be used for assessing individual aggregate (multiple pathways and routes) and cumulative (multiple compounds) exposure in a 1500-strong cohort from all participating countries and studies. Extrapolation to larger population groups will be done through hierarchical population modelling. Data on location, activity patterns, nutritional habits and consumer products use of the cohort participants will be collected through personalized sensors (GPS, activity sensors and use of mobile phone cameras). Due to the substantial technical and ethical hurdles involved in collecting real individual space-time movement data for larger populations, movement and interaction behavior will be simulated via agent-based models (ABM) informed by sensor web data fusion on the basis of the data collected by the NEUROSOME cohort participants.
ABMs organize social behaviors in order to understand the dynamics of real-world systems by simulating individuals (agents) and their interactions with other agents and the environment as part of a larger complex system. The probability distributions necessary for hierarchical modelling-based extrapolation will be derived based on the emerging behavior of the agent-based system. Regarding lifetime exposure, assessment will be focused on ten critical stages that have been identified as important in the onset and progress of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.
