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The Climate, Air Quality Research Unit team holds unique expertise in applying epidemiology and biostatistics to understand how climate change and air quality affect health. We apply environmental epidemiology, biostatistics, remote sensing modelling and infectious disease modelling to air quality and climate change. We regularly collaborate with international and domestic research groups, and have strong links with researchers in mainland China, who share an interest in air quality.
The unprecedented 2019-2020 wildfire season in Australia resulted in a declared state of emergency as bushfires (the Australian term for wildfires) burned ~5.8 million hectares, and nearby communities repeatedly experienced extreme levels of smoke. Extreme fire episodes will occur with higher frequency across Australia under climate change, as warmer temperatures lead to drier, more flammable conditions. Research on health burdens of wildfire smoke is limited, but existing evidence indicates impacts from short-term exposure, such as for hospital admissions. Evidence for a consistent association between wildfire smoke and adverse pregnancy outcomes remains understudied. Ambient particles from other typically urban sources have well-documented associations with birth outcomes. However, research including many HEI studies also show that the chemical composition of particles influences health consequences, indicating that risk estimates likely differ for wildfire PM2.5 versus PM2.5 total mass. To date, much of the literature has focused on a single fire episode and relatively small population. Other studies attempting to quantify long-term health impacts of smoke relied on concentration-response relationships for PM2.5 total mass, not wildfire-specific PM2.5. Our long-term goal is to develop the methods and scientific evidence to estimate the health burden of wildfires, including for sensitive subpopulations, and to develop advanced fire modelling approaches for this work, thereby laying the foundation for related future research. To achieve these goals, we must address critical research needs for the topic of wildfires. Specifically, novel methodologies are needed to estimate how populations are exposed to wildfire smoke for locations and time periods without monitors, and to disentangle PM2.5 from wildfires from that of other sources. One key method to estimate exposure is advanced fire modelling; however, this itself requires innovation as improvements are needed in fire modelling systems.
Our innovative exposure methodology, estimating wildfire-specific PM2.5 throughout the continent, will allow us to identify exposure gradients and health outcomes that are otherwise obscured through use of traditional monitor-based approaches.
This project is funded through a grant from the Health Effects Institute (RFA 20-1 Health Effects of Air Pollution).
Children are vital to a country’s present and its future. Healthy births and children are more likely to become healthy adults have long life expectancy. Recently, large and unprecedented bushfires (or wildfires) have been occurring frequently in many regions of the world, with grave consequences, particularly for Australia. However, there is a significant knowledge gap on whether children and pregnancy outcomes are impacted by bushfire smoke in Australia.
The aim of this Investigator Grant program is to provide crucial scientific evidence based on big data analysis, which is much needed to minimise harm from bushfire smoke on children and pregnancy outcomes for both Australian and international communities. The four broad themes proposed for this research program are to:
This research program represents a transformative leap forward in our ability to inform better preparation for the risks of bushfire smoke on children and pregnancy outcomes. The outcomes of this research program will result in reduced hazard of bushfire smoke, leading to substantial gains in population and environmental health. Importantly, this work will allow for the expansion and sustainability of my team by generating opportunities for new PhD students, as well as providing avenues for career advancement for new and current postdoctoral researchers.
Global environmental change is unprecedented in scale, and the evidence on its risks to population health is needed urgently by governments, health service-providers and individuals. I have made great contribution to the recognition that global environmental change (e.g. extreme weathers and air pollution) is ubiquitous health risk to the general, current and future, and their unequal effects around the world.
There are several key questions and methodology challenges in the field of global environmental change and health:
This research project will fill above gaps, through improving the air pollution measurements and development of Multi-Country Multi-City Study for Environmental Health Effect and Cohort Consortium for Long-term Air Pollution Effects in Asia Pacific. This program will enable more accurate research findings and facilitate capacity building of health impacts of global environmental change, leading to greater benefit to populations.
Asia Pacific region (APR) will face profound stresses and challenges from climate change, if both average temperatures and extreme heat events increase as projected. There is an urgent need for a better quantitative understanding of the health effects of ambient temperatures, and this requires studies of both current health effects and scenario analyses of likely future health effects. These data would underpin future priority setting for climate adaptation and mitigation policies. To date, however, the study of the health effects of climate change remained largely outside the scope of public health research in APR, due to methodological complexities and data availability.
The overall aims of the Australian team are to:
The specific objectives are to:
This project will be the largest to assess the health impacts of climate change and temperature in the APR. Knowledge arising from the project will provide vital evidence for governmental policy on implementation of the mitigation and adaptation policies to address the health challenges associated with climate change.
This project is supported by a NHMRC e-ASIA JRP grant.
research.monash.edu/en/projects/climate-change-and-human-health-in-asia-current-impacts-future-ri
Catastrophic bushfires are a major natural disaster, causing serious air pollution. However, aligning bushfire air pollution and public health policies becomes a significant challenge, because limited studies are available on relationships between bushfire air pollution and human health, particularly for the prolonged exposure. We will characterize the nature of the relationships between bushfire air pollution and mortality/morbidity by developing a multi-country study; and estimate the burden of diseases attributed to bushfire air pollution. This project will provide essential scientific evidence to policy-makers and stakeholders in the development, prioritization and implementation of health protection strategies and policies.
This project is supported by an ARC Discovery grant.
Our planet is facing more frequent, longer and unprecedented bushfires under climate change. The aim of this project is to apply AI for estimating the concentrations of bushfire smoke across the world and its global health burden, which is a vital prerequisite for guiding policy and the public health response.
There is a significant knowledge gap on the burden of bushfire smoke on human health.
Major barriers include:
This project is supported by a grant from the Monash Data Futures Institute.
research.monash.edu/en/projects/ai-for-estimating-global-bushfire-smoke-and-its-health-burden
In this study, we aim to estimate the global daily concentrations of ambient PM2.5 and wildfire PM2.5 based on data of multiple predictors, such as meteorological factors, satellite observations (e.g., land use information, fire size and behaviour), and inputs from GEOS-Chem model.
First, we will link data of predictors with ground-based observations of PM2.5 from 11,404 monitor stations in 85 countries and regions during 2014−2019 (data already collected, Figure 1).
Based on this dataset, we will train a machine learning model that can accurately predict daily ambient PM2.5 with data of predictors.
With the trained model, we will then predict global high-resolution (0.1° × 0.1° or finer) daily ambient PM2.5 from 2014 to 2019 based on data of predictors.
Finally, the global wildfire PM2.5 at the same spatial and temporal resolution will be estimated as the differences between the simulated ambient PM2.5 with and without fire events.
This aim of this project is to create a geodatabase of validated bushfire smoke exposures for all Australia from 2000 to present. The geodatabase will build on our previous published list of validated events for NSW, WA and TAS (Johnston et al. 2011; Hanigan et al. 2018) and will comprise national air pollution concentration surfaces (high spatial resolution maps) with new data and tools for linking exposure assessments with health outcomes data for studies of recent and historical smoke pollution events of fire smoke specific particulate matter (PM) concentrations. The project will also develop capacity for near-real-time smoke modelling to inform public health warning systems.
research.monash.edu/en/projects/the-fire-smoke-exposure-study-seed-funding-from-the-centre-for-ai
This study investigates the link between respiratory and cardiovascular disease and mortality and exposure to long-term air pollution. We will use cutting edge methods to assign neighbourhood air pollution levels to a large cohort of NSW adults (n>265,000) previously recruited in the 45 and Up Study. The study results will be of utmost importance in setting outdoor air pollution standards and informing cost benefit analyses of air pollution control strategies.
research.monash.edu/en/projects/air-pollution-and-mortality-and-morbidity-in-adult-australians-ap
CAR brings together over 30 leading Australian and international researchers from diverse but related disciplines. Members are based in eight of Australia's most prestigious research institutions.
CAR supports teams of researchers to pursue collaborative projects and to develop their capacity by providing:
CAR website: car-cre.org.au
This project will answer key questions in assessment of environmental health risks, including:
The findings will provide strategies and supportive evidence for policy decisions to mitigate the health impacts of extreme weathers and air pollution.
This project involves global collaborators from more 30 countries.
This project is supported by the NHMRC.
Calculations based on satellite-derived data will update the knowledge base for assessing childhood asthma in relation to residential green spaces and local climate. The research is of great importance due to the high prevalence of asthma among Australian children. Findings will help health workers allocate resources for preventing asthma attacks and provide evidence for urban planning.
This project involves collaborators from several countries, and is supported by the NHMRC.
research.monash.edu/en/projects/initiating-the-asia-pacific-cohort-consortium-for-health-effects-
research.monash.edu/en/projects/nhmrc-centre-for-air-quality-and-health-research-and-evaluation-c
The goals of this collaborative project were to:
Specifically, researchers used an integrated assessment modeling method to assess the air quality and health impacts of a few selected mid-century carbon mitigation scenarios, i.e. the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP), in China and United States at the state/province level.
The SSP scenarios represent a range of possible future “pathways” with variations in demographics, economics and climate action over the next century.
Our research will involve three steps:
Dr Shanshan Li was awarded a Monash University Advancing Women’s Research Success Grant to support her Monash-Indonesia collaborative programme that examines children’s health effects of air pollution and high temperature, including a range of bio-indicators, physical and cognitive development.
The programme is at its initial phase and the research assistant’s activities include: