Climate and Health

We are very active in the area of climate and health in trying to model extremes in climate and the way these translate into the health field, using innovative approaches. For example, temperature extremes such as heatwaves and their resulting impact on human mortality, is one of these successful areas. A main focus of our research has also been centered on modeling climate-driven infectious diseases (e.g. from water-borne diseases such as cholera, rotavirus, adenovirus, to vector-borne diseases such as malaria, cutaneous leishmaniasis, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever and dengue), for both endemic regions and in epidemic situations worldwide (such as the fringe areas of deserts and highlands, which are very important in assessing the effects of climate variability). We have also recently launched two new areas of research: one devoted to modeling airborne diseases and their possible links to large-scale atmospheric circulations patterns, while a second area of interest is the development of new IBM-ABM platforms used to study the spatial dynamics of disease propagation.

Research Themes