21 April 2026
In Exposome-NL, we work together with citizens to measure and analyse air quality data. An article on the often-unseen power of these citizen scientists was recently published in Vetscience, the magazine of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University.
Rob is one of those citizen scientists. He contributes to the Exposome Panel Study by voluntarily collecting data for research. For two weeks, the measurements demand Rob’s attention every day. When he goes cycling with his wife, he takes a particulate matter sensor and a GPS tracker with him. A sensor on his window measures the air quality. On his wrist he wears a silicon wristband day and night that captures chemical substances. Rob explains what motivates him: “We gain deeper insight into our own living environment, while also contributing to knowledge that can be applied on a larger scale.”
The environment we live in has a dominant impact on our health. It explains an estimated seventy percent of the chronic disease burden. Where we live, what we eat, how much we exercise, the air we breathe and whom we associate with; all of these environmental factors play a role. The combination of these factors over the life course is called the exposome. There is general (scientific) consensus that understanding more about the exposome will help explain the current burden of disease and that it provides entry points for prevention and ...
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