The University of Barcelona and MútuaTerrassa create the first chair on health and climate change create the first chair on health and climate change
The Chair was created with the aim of promoting multiple teaching, research, training, documentation and dissemination activities in the field of health, in order to assess the consequences of climate change on people's health. For this reason, it will become a platform of reference and excellence to promote translational research projects, especially on prevalent chronic pathologies — through the integration of climate and environmental data —, as well as prospective studies of the population cohort of Mútua Terrassa (300,000 people).
Also, the Chair will allow disseminating and transferring knowledge to health and university professionals and to society in general. It will also create synergies with other UB research groups and with external groups, with the aim of reaching leadership positions in the sector, achieving scientific and academic outreach and becoming a reference in the binomial climate change and people's health.
The rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, expressed his satisfaction with the agreement with the Mútua Terrassa Teaching and Research Foundation: "Our country has an excellent research and healthcare system. The joint efforts of the UB and the Foundation will allow us to advance in a field as important as health research and, specifically, in the study of how climate change impacts on people's health. Our goal is to improve the lives of our fellow citizens.
On the other hand, the president of Mútua Terrassa, Antoni Abad, highlighted the "pioneering" nature of the chair and emphasized the shared values of the two institutions: "At Mútua Terrassa, we have initiated the development of a climate action plan, the Green Commitment. It calls on all our professionals in the field of healthcare to act as prescribers of sustainability", said Abad. "With the chair, we are working to advance and deepen the field of research and teaching in the mitigation of the effects of climate change", he concluded.
The chair's director, David Dalmau, stated that the chair "will be an agora in which different interlocutors will establish synergies with the aim of improving people's health by studying the effect of climate change".
More activities of the Chair
The development of national and international conferences and seminars related to climate change and its impact on global health, as well as the creation of practical training programs in this area and the promotion of awards, scholarships and grants for projects of this nature, complement the objectives for which this chair has been conceived.
Given its nature and subject matter, the Chair is linked to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, which is its headquarters. The academic direction and management is led by David Dalmau, PhD in Medicine, specialist in internal medicine and infectious diseases, associate professor at the UB and director of the Mútua Terrassa Teaching and Research Foundation. About ten more Mútua Terrassa physicians from various specialties will be part of the professionals assigned to the chair.
Climate change and health
Climate change and its impacts are the most important global challenge that human societies have ever faced. Global warming is not an exclusively environmental problem, but it affects many areas and is becoming a major issue affecting biodiversity, the economic model, mobility, trade, food sovereignty, access to water and natural resources, infrastructure and health. It will therefore have an increasing impact on global, national and local policies.
The alteration of climatic variables — temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed and seawater temperature, among others — and the increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events — droughts, floods, heat waves — already pose a risk to ecosystems, to the preservation of biodiversity and to people.
Chronic diseases are very prevalent in industrialized societies such as the Catalan society. These diseases involve a greater vulnerability to other pathologies (comorbidities) and greater fragility to adverse circumstances, given their lower capacity for adaptability. The western Mediterranean basin and, in particular, the Iberian Peninsula will be one of the regions of Europe where climate change will have an earlier effect and where it will manifest itself with greater intensity. Now, scientific evidence of the relationship between climate change and prevalent diseases is scarce.
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