slide
27 April 2026

Exposome Alliance

Eurochild is a supporter of the Exposome Alliance, an informal collaboration platform bringing together scientific experts, policymakers, and civil society to promote prevention and public health in Europe.

What does exposome mean?

It's a scientific concept referring to all the environmental exposures a person experiences throughout their life and how they affect their health. The alliance was launched on 24 February 2026 during an event at the European Parliament in Brussels to address better the environmental and social causes of chronic diseases in Europe and shift EU policy toward prevention. The shared goal is reducing diseases like cancer and heart and lung conditions by tackling lifelong exposures that affect health and supporting healthy ageing. All the environmental, chemical, social, and lifestyle factors that influence health may account for up to 90% of negative health outcomes.

The Alliance has three main priorities:

  • investing €1 billion in exposome research (including a long-term study of 10 million people),
  • creating a European data system to connect health and environmental information,
  • establishing a stronger EU framework to coordinate disease prevention efforts.

What's Eurochild's role?

We aim to ensure that Europe’s emerging prevention and public health agenda is child-centred, rights-based, and equity-driven, fully aligned with our 2026–2030 Strategic Framework. The Exposome Manifesto marks an important step forward for public health in Europe, not only because it calls for stronger prevention, better data, and coordinated EU action, but because it explicitly recognises human rights as a guiding principle.

For Eurochild, this matters. A human‑rights‑based approach is essential to understanding how environmental and social exposures shape children’s lives from the earliest stages. Children are not just a vulnerable group; they are rights‑holders, and their right to health, development, and protection must be central to any prevention agenda.

Across our work, from early childhood development to education equity and child poverty, Eurochild consistently highlights how early‑life experiences influence lifelong well-being. This is also at the heart of the European Child Guarantee, which aims to ensure that every child in Europe has access to essential services, including healthcare, education, nutrition, and housing. The Exposome approach reinforces what the Child Guarantee already recognises: to improve population health, we must start with children.

Further Information: