Profile: Dr Paul Wilkinson
Dr Paul Wilkinson from the Public & Environmental Health Research Unit talks about his career and research
"After studying medicine at Oxford University, I spent several years in hospital medicine in London, before taking up an epidemiological research post at the National Heart & Lung Institute. From there I moved to the LSHTM in 1994.
It was then that I first began research into the links between the environment and health, initially studying hazards arising from localised chemical contamination of the environment - pollution of the air and from industrial emissions. Such hazards have been the focus of much international research effort in recent years reflecting the problems associated with industrialisation and urban living in both the developed and developing world.
More recently I have been part of a research team that has begun to focus on the health impacts of global environmental change. There is now increasing recognition that we face growing threats to human health from large-scale environmental changes - threats arising from our profligate consumption of the Earth's resources and from pollution of our environment at a global scale.
One of those threats is climate change, and its potential impacts on health is the theme of our co-operative research group on Climate change, ozone depletion and health sponsored by the Medical Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council. Through this group we are working with climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. Our aim is to quantify vulnerability to climate change in different regions of the world, to predict future health impacts and to understand how we may ameliorate those impacts through public health action. This entails new approaches to epidemiological research and involves methodological complexities that we are only just beginning to resolve."
Dr Kelley Lee also works in the Public & Environmental Health Research Unit
