Personalized, Real-Time Health Impact of Climate Change and Pollution
Convergence Health & Technology Flagship
Climate change and pollution are putting billions of lives at risk. This flagship aims to understand how environmental issues affect each person uniquely. With advanced tools, from medical wearables to organ-on-a-chip technology, we plan to track individual health in real-time, providing personalized strategies to help people stay healthy.
Ambition & Goals
Our environment and our health are tightly interlinked. The alarming levels of climate change (rising temperatures) and pollution put about half the human population, 3.5 billion people, at increased risk for developing chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular, neurological, and autoimmune diseases.
Critical for effective intervention is monitoring the environment and its health effects. This Flagship proposes a unique approach combining bioengineering, medical wearables, and data-driven impact analysis. Supported by clinical, economic, and ethical insights, we aim to uncover and reduce the effects of environmental stress on an individual scale in real-time. From research on tissue-level towards effective policy-making for a healthier society.
Now, more than ever, we must understand how our changing environment affects our behaviour and health and how we can mitigate its negative impact to live long and healthy lives.
Dr. H.B. (Bing) Thio
Erasmus MC
Investigator | Dermatologist
Objectives
Our breakthroughs will enable evidence-based personalized interventions, providing citizens and clinicians with the toolsets and knowledge to implement personalized prevention and intervention strategies. Simultaneously, we aim to empower policy-making agencies with analytics based on real-time data to develop cost-effective and ethical policies for mitigating environmental health challenges.
