EXPOHEALTH Symposium in Mainz: How traffic noise, air pollution and heat affect our health

Each year, around 9 million people worldwide die as a result of chemical environmental pollution, including approximately 6.5 million deaths caused by air pollutants. In addition, around 1.6 million healthy life years are lost due to nighttime noise exposure. Environmental stressors such as traffic noise, air pollution and climate change-related heatwaves continue to increase, while demographic and social developments place additional strain on particularly vulnerable groups. The biological mechanisms underlying these health effects — such as neural stress responses caused by noise, organ damage caused by nano-sized particulate matter or the development of cancer — have not yet been sufficiently researched.[1]

This is where the translational and interdisciplinary research of the potential research area “EXPOHEALTH (EXPOsure-related HEALTH effects)” comes in. Experts from Mainz University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry Mainz, Goethe University Frankfurt and numerous cooperation partners use a wide range of methods to investigate the disease-promoting effects of these environmental stressors. The findings feed into publications and research proposals, which in turn are intended to support applications for DFG-funded collaborative research projects with international visibility.

On 1 and 2 June 2026, the EXPOHEALTH Symposium took place at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz. The event provided a platform for exchanging current research findings on the health effects of environmental stressors. Prof. Dr. Marianne Müller from the Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research contributed to the programme. On the second day of the event, she spoke about translational models of social stress and resilience, bringing a systems biology perspective to the discussion.

The symposium was supported by the Rhineland-Palatinate Research Initiative, the Dr. Hans Riegel Foundation, the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Markers of Pollution (MARKOPOLO), the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, and the Society for Free Radical Research Europe.

Further information on the potential research area “EXPOHEALTH (EXPOsure-related HEALTH effects)” can be found here.

[1] Source: https://www.unimedizin-mainz.de/expohealth/uebersicht.html