Environmental Risks
We investigate how environmental factors like air pollution, temperature, weather events, climate change, noise, and green space affect health, with a focus on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in adults.
We investigate how environmental factors like air pollution, temperature, weather events, climate change, noise, and green space affect health, with a focus on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in adults.
About our Research
The environments where we live and work can profoundly affect our health. While quiet, green environments with good air quality can promote good health and wellbeing, environments with air pollution, traffic and industrial noise, extreme temperatures, and extreme weather events can cause a variety of health problems. Even small amounts of air pollution, low levels of noise, and less intense exposure to summer heat or winter cold can lead to poor health outcomes in some vulnerable groups. Environmental exposures can sometimes also work together to create better or worse health outcomes – for example, the combination of air pollution and high temperatures is especially bad for our health.
In our working group, we study the short- (acute) and long-term (chronic) beneficial and adverse health impacts of environmental factors such as air pollution, meteorology, climate change, noise, and urban greenness. We study the impact of the environment on a variety of health outcomes, but focus in particular on cardiovascular, metabolic, and mental health in adults. We aim to provide new evidence on the interplay between environmental factors, exposure-response functions, underlying health mechanisms, and subclinical phenotypes. We also investigate differences by sex or gender, and whether certain population subgroups (such as the elderly, children, or people with chronic illnesses) are especially susceptible.
People at Environmental Risks
Highlighted Publications
See all2024 J Am Coll Cardiol
2024 Lancet Planet Health
2024 BMJ
Rainfall events and daily mortality across 645 global locations: two stage time series analysis
2023 Environ Int
2023 Am J Respir Crit Care Med
Impact of Ambient Ultrafine Particles on Cause-Specific Mortality in Three German Cities
2023 Environ Res
2023 Environ Int
2022 Lancet Planet Health
2022 Environ Pollut
