Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Public Health
A scoping review to map research gaps and opportunities relating to heat-related health hazards in countries surrounding Lake Victoria, Africa.
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Public Health, Physical and Environmental Geography, Sustainability
Urban populations in sub-Saharan Africa are at rising risks of climate-related health hazards due to global climate change and uncontrolled rapid urbanization. Despite the increasing recognition of these challenges, the extent to which urban climates impact health outcomes in Africa remains poorly understood. East African countries surrounding the Lake Victoria Basin (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, [...]
Two decades of kilometer-scale daily PM2.5 from satellite observations and machine learning reveal geographically diverging exposure in Ghana
Published: 2026-06-06
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Atmospheric Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a major contributor to global burden of disease, yet air quality data remain sparse in many low- and middle-income countries, limiting nationwide monitoring and effective policy development. We address this gap by developing a high-resolution gridded (1 km × 1 km) dataset for daily surface PM2.5 concentrations in Ghana from 2005 to 2025 by training [...]
The Impact of Climate Change on Human Health and Pharmaceuticals
Published: 2026-02-16
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Medical Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Public Health, Sustainability, Toxicology
Climate change and air pollution affect nearly every major organ system, altering both the presentation of disease and patient responses to pharmaceutical treatments. However, existing knowledge on how patients, healthcare professionals, and governments should prepare for these challenges is fragmented. Climate change contributes to premature mortality, increased morbidity, and exacerbation of [...]
Stadiums as climate-exposed socio-technical infrastructures: a scoping review of fragmented risks and emerging challenges
Published: 2026-01-27
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies
Stadiums are among the most climate-sensitive infrastructures in global sport, yet the evidence available to characterise their climate-related risks remains fragmented. Although billions of spectators attend sporting events each year and climate change is recognised as a multiplier of existing hazards, research on stadium environments continues to treat risks separately. Heat is examined through [...]
Cervical Cancer and Climate Change
Published: 2026-01-10
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
Background: The research question guiding this scoping review was: "What does the literature reveal (since January 1, 2005) about the association between climate change—or its underlying environmental drivers—and cervical cancer?" Methods: We conducted a comprehensive literature search using two major electronic databases: PubMed and Web of Science, for January 1, 2005, through July 30, 2024. 522 [...]
Modeling Daily Plume Specific Smoke Concentrations for Health Effects Studies with Estimates of Fire Size, Plume Age, and Fuel Type
Published: 2025-05-15
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Public Health, Statistical Models, Transport Phenomena
Inhaling smoke PM2.5 can cause adverse health effects ranging from acute (e.g., lung irritation) to chronic (e.g., lung cancer). Acute health effects have immediate implications for public health, requiring rapid response to minimize harm during an exposure window. Estimating acute health effects requires short-term (e.g., daily) estimates of fire-specific smoke PM2.5 concentrations at ground [...]
Rethinking Environmental Sustainability in the Operating Room: Beyond the Reusability Assumption for Surgical Instruments
Published: 2025-02-21
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Medicine and Health Sciences, Public Health
Addressing the climate crisis is an urgent global priority, yet the healthcare sector continues to face significant challenges in implementing long-term green solutions. The sector accounts for 4.4% of global carbon emissions, with an even greater impact of 7% in the Netherlands. The latest Dutch report- Barometer Groene OK- proposes ten key measures to reduce the healthcare carbon footprint, [...]
Beyond land surface temperature: identifying areas of daytime thermal discomfort in cities by combining remote sensing and field measurements.
Published: 2024-12-20
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
Satellite images of land surface temperatures (LST) are commonly used to identify areas within cities most prone to diurnal thermal discomfort, but they may not reflect the experiences of pedestrians. Here, we developed predictive statistical models for Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), an indicator of thermal discomfort, with easily accessible spatial predictors. For this, we measured [...]
Carbon dioxide removal could perpetuate community-scale inequalities of U.S. air pollution in net-zero scenarios
Published: 2024-11-28
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies
Pathways to net-zero reduce GHG emissions and improve air quality, but the magnitude and distribution of these improvements will depend on specific mitigation decisions, such as the amount of carbon dioxide removals (CDR). Here, we combine a series of models and datasets to analyze community-scale PM2.5 impacts across the contiguous U.S. of net-zero scenarios with different levels of CDR. Both [...]
Heatwaves and Hostilities - Can rising temperatures lead to lasting peace?
Published: 2024-09-13
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, International and Area Studies, Nature and Society Relations, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In this paper, we are going to explore the complex relationship between climate change and global peace. Climate change and wars have a reciprocal relationship. As the war fuels climate change, the latter can catalyze the war too. Through the analysis of the ongoing conflicts across the world, recent technological advancements, and the globalized nature of the world, we will review different [...]
Loss of Schooling from Tropical Cyclones: Evidence from 13 Low- and Middle-income Countries
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies
Increasing educational attainment is one of the most important and effective tools for health and economic improvements. The extent to which extreme climate events disrupt education, resulting in fewer years of schooling and reduced educational attainment, remains under-studied. Children in low- and middle-income countries may be uniquely vulnerable to loss of schooling after such disasters due [...]
Evaluating estimation methods for wildfire smoke and their implications for assessing health effects
Published: 2024-06-13
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Public Health
Growing wildfire smoke represents a substantial threat to air quality and human health in the US and across much of the globe. However, the impact of wildfire smoke on human health remains imprecisely understood, due to uncertainties in both the measurement of population wildfire smoke exposure and dose-response functions linking exposure to health. Here, we compare daily wildfire smoke-related [...]
Assessing the climate and health impacts of energy consumption in European Union countries
Published: 2024-01-25
Subjects: Environmental Public Health
************************************************************************************************************** Note: This article has been published in Environmental Research Letters. Please refer to the published version: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/add752 ************************************************************************************************************** Greenhouse gas emissions [...]
Designing and describing climate change impact attribution studies: a guide to common approaches
Published: 2024-01-06
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Public Health, Spatial Science, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Impact attribution is an emerging transdisciplinary sub-discipline of detection and attribution, focused on the social, economic, and ecological impacts of climate change. Here, we provide an overview of common end-to-end frameworks in impact attribution, focusing on examples relating to the human health impacts of climate change. We propose a typology of study designs based on whether [...]
Indoor and Ambient Influences on PM2.5 Exposure and Well-being for a Rail Impacted Community and Implications for Personal Protections
Published: 2023-11-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Public Health
Background. Higher air pollution concentrations can be observed near rail networks, local and highway automobile corridors, and shipyards. Communities adjacent to such sources are disproportionately exposed to air pollution from these stationary and mobile sources. One such community is West San Bernardino in California, where households are feet away from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe [...]