Air pollution, heatwaves and changing weather patterns with longer periods of sunshine are becoming increasingly familiar to residents of Sofia. Researchers now want to better understand how these everyday environmental exposures affect people's health over time.
To answer this question, Sofia Development Association, Health and Life Sciences Cluster and Virtech are preparing to launch the local phase of ENACT (Environmental Effect on Healthcare and Wellbeing), a Horizon Europe research project bringing together experts from across Europe to investigate how the environments in which we live, work, and move influence the development of non-communicable diseases.
Over the past 18 months, the ENACT consortium has laid the foundations for this next stage of the project. Researchers have compiled scientific evidence on environmental exposures and health and have developed the digital tools needed to combine environmental and health data securely. The consortium has also designed sensors and wearable monitoring technologies capable of measuring a person's exposure to factors such as air pollution, temperature, noise, and ultraviolet radiation throughout the day, alongside physiological data.
These advances now make it possible to begin prospective studies in five pilot sites across Europe, and Sofia is one of them. Although each pilot focuses on different health challenges, they all share the same objective: to better understand how environmental conditions contribute to disease and how this knowledge can support healthier communities and more effective prevention strategies.
In Sofia researchers will investigate how weather conditions affect patients with cardio-vascular diseases. The study will involve adults, who have cardio-vascular problems, who will contribute information through health assessments, questionnaires, and environmental monitoring over a defined period. The results will help researchers understand how everyday environmental exposures influence cardio-vascular conditions in the local population.
The information collected across the five pilot sites will contribute to the development and validation of new AI-based models capable of identifying relationships between environmental exposures and health outcomes. In the future, this knowledge could support healthcare professionals, public authorities, and policymakers in designing more targeted prevention measures and healthier living environments.
Recruitment for the study is expected to begin September 2026 Further information about participation will be available from Sofia Development Association and Health & life science cluster.
About ENACT
ENACT (Environmental Effect on Healthcare and Wellbeing) is a Horizon Europe research project involving partners from across Europe. The project combines environmental science, medicine, digital health, and artificial intelligence to improve understanding of how environmental exposures influence health and to support future disease prevention strategies.
More information at https://enact-he.eu/
The proejct is a HORIZON Research and Innovation Action.
