ISGlobal welcomes a new research group on climate and health

The scientific department of the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal) has grown stronger with the incorporation of a research group on Climate and Health, led by iCREA researcher Xavier Rodó. The arrival of this team, composed of seven persons, has led to the creation of a new research program focused on assessing the impact of climate change on people’s health and other sectors of society, both locally and globally.

Climate change is becoming a major issue in public health and in political agendas worldwide. The new group’s research aims to address the effects that environmental changes associated to climate change may have on human health, and develop predictive computational models. Their research lines include extreme temperatures and precipitations, heat waves, the impact of climate change on the spread of infectious diseases like malaria, dengue, leishmaniosis, chikungunya, or Zika, the El Niño phenomenon and other climate and environment factors, and their relationship with Kawasaki disease and other inflammatory diseases.

In addition to Xavier Rodó, the group includes Joan Ballester, Principal Investigator, Joseph Boyard and Anna Deluca, postdoctoral researchers, Desislava Petrova and Carlos Dommar, associate predoctoral researchers, and Sílvia Borràs, laboratory manager.

The new group, which until now had worked at the Instituto Catalán de Ciencias del Clima (IC3), will be located at ISGlobal Campus MAR in the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB).