GREENMASS: Green infrastructure and health mapping alliance of Surrey academics
Start date
01 March 2018End date
31 July 2018Background
The positives of green infrastructure (GI), such as trees and hedges, on public health are clearly evident. Greening of cities for healthy urban living is being taken as a priority in many cities worldwide, but the guidelines on the deployment of GI in urban areas, and how much health benefits they bring in quantitative terms (e.g., reduced mortality, hospital admissions or life years), are still open questions for the research community, the general public and various funding agencies.
These questions can only be addressed through a multidisciplinary approach. Hosted within the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) and funded by the University of Surrey’s Urban Living Award, Green Infrastructure and Health Mapping Alliance of Surrey Academics (GREENMASS) project builds upon Surrey’s extensive expertise and leverage significant on-going research activities (e.g., H2020 funded iSCAPE; OPERANDUM).
The aim of the GREENMASS is to establish a cross-disciplinary university-wide alliance to understand linkages between ‘green infrastructure’ and ‘health mapping’ in urban areas. In particular, we will build an understanding of the links between GI interventions and the incidence of health problems such as respiratory diseases and hospital admissions and the prevalence of mental and cardiovascular problems.
Aims and objectives
The overall goal is to foster collaboration between numerous research areas such as ‘Air Pollution’, ‘Green Infrastructure Engineering’, ‘Clinical Health’, ‘Environmental Sustainability’, ‘Mathematical Modelling’, ‘Mental Health’ and ‘Environmental Psychology’ via a research alliance platform to address this complex urban problem.
The specific objectives are:
- Develop a novel methodology of linking GI and health outcomes using Guildford as a pilot study area, with a view to applying it broadly in future
- Respond to relevant research funding calls that are specifically focusing at the multidisciplinary questions related to green infrastructure and public health topics
- Develop a long-term collaborative platform by combining broader expertise in the area of air pollution and Public health
- Broadly link our research to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, 13 ‘Climate Action’, and progress towards the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Funder
GREENMASS was funded by the University of Surrey’s Urban Living Award.
Team
Founding principal investigator
Prashant Kumar
Professor and Chair in Air Quality and Health / Director, Global Centre for Clean Air Research, GCARE; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
See profileFounding members
Dr Sarah Allison
Lecturer in Health and Exercise Science, School of Biosciences and Medicine
Professor Derk-Jan Dijk
Professor of Sleep and Physiology, Director Surrey Sleep Research Centre
Professor Angela Druckman
Director of the Centre for Environment and Sustainability and Professor of Sustainable Consumption and Production
Professor Birgitta Gatersleben
Professor of Environmental Psychology
Professor Anne Skeldon
Reader in Mathematics; Department of Mathematics
Simon de Lusignan
Professor of Primary Care and Clinical Informatics, and Vice Chancellor's Fellow
Early career researchers
KV Abhijith
GCARE PhD Researcher, iSCAPE Project; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr Sarkawt Hama
GCARE Post-doctoral Researcher, ASAP-Delhi Project; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr Uy Hoang
Post-doctoral Researcher, Clinical Informatics and Health Outcomes Research Group; Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Ashish Sharma
GCARE PhD Researcher, MAPE Project; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Arvind Tiwari
CARE PhD Researcher, iSCAPE Project; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
New members
Dr Deepti Adlakha
Lecturer in Spatial Planning, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast
Dr John Gallagher
Assistant Professor in Environmental Systems Modelling, School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin
Dr Antoine Jeanjean
Postdoctoral Researcher, Earth Observation Group; Department of Physics, University of Leicester
Dr Aonghus McNabola
Associate Professor in Energy and Environment, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin
Professor Lidia Morawska
Director, International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology
Dr Kayleigh Wyles
Lecturer in Environmental Psychology, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
Outputs
Outcomes
- Kick-off meeting (Date: Meeting held on 10 March 2018)
- Interim review meeting (Date: Meeting held on 21th June 2018)
- Outcome review meeting (Date: Meeting held on 15th July 2018)
Publications
Kumar, P., Druckman, A., Gallagher, J., Gatersleben, B., Allison, S., Eisenman, T.S., Hoang, U., Hama, S., Tiwari, A., Sharma, A., Abhijith, KV, Adlakha, D., McNabola, A., Astell-Burt, T., Feng, X., Skeldon, A.C., de Lusignan, S., Morawska, L., 2019. The Nexus between Air Pollution, Green Infrastructure and Human Health. Environment International 133,105181. Accessible at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019319683.