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Dr Sari Kovats

BA MSc PhD FFPH

Associate Professor

Room
Room 233

LSHTM
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
United Kingdom

Tel.
+44(0)20 7927 2962

Sari Kovats is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health, Environments and Society in the Faculty of Public Health and Policy. She has been researching the effects of weather, climate and climate change on human health for more than 20 years. Her particular areas of interest include health impact assessment of climate change and epidemiological studies of the effects of climate, weather and weather events in urban and rural populations.

Sari is the Consortium co-lead for the Belmont funded project CHAMNHA - Climate, Heat and Maternal and Neonatal Health in Africa. This project is undertaking epidemiological research on the impact extreme hot weather on maternal and neonatal outcomes. 

Sari is the Knowledge Mobilisation lead for the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Environmental Change and Health, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) and UCL. Sari is exploring the equity implications of the impacts of and responses to heatwave and flooding on health in the UK population. 

Sari was the co-Coordinating Lead Author for Chapter 23 on Europe in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Fifth Assessment Report (2014). Sari is co-author of the chapter on "Health, Communities and the Built Environment" for the evidence review of the UK Third Climate Change Risk Assessment (2021).

Sari has been employed by LSHTM since 1994 when she joined the Dept of Epidemiology and Population Health to work as a research assistant on one of the first comprehensive books on climate change and health: McMichael AJ, Haines A, Slooff R, and Kovats S, eds. Climate Change and Human Health: an assessment prepared by a Task Group on behalf of the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, and the United Nations Environment Programme. Geneva, WHO, 1996 [WHO/EHG/96.7].  In 1997, Sari was promoted to Research Fellow and in 2003 to Lecturer, and in 2010 to Senior Lecturer. Sari has a Masters Degree in Social Policy from the SouthBank University in London and completed a part-time PhD in environmental epidemiology in 2010 at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Affiliations

Faculty of Public Health and Policy
Department of Public Health, Environments and Society

Centres

Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health

Teaching

Sari teaches postgraduates in the field of climate change, sustainable development and public health.

Sari organises the Module "Environment, Health and Sustainable Development" for the in-house MSc Public Health at LSHTM. She tutors students on the MSc Public Health course. Dr Kovats co-edited the book "Environment, Health and Sustainable Development" published by Open University Press in 2017. 

Sari supervises four research students on projects on climate change and health. 

Research

Current Research Projects include

Research Area
Climate change
Environment
Health inequalities
Public health
Risk
Systematic reviews
Capacity strengthening
Environmental Health
Natural disasters
Modelling
Discipline
Epidemiology
Region
Europe & Central Asia (all income levels)
European Union
Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)

Selected Publications

Heat and health in the WHO European Region: updated evidence for effective prevention
Bjerglund Andersen N; Böckmann M
2021
UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Report: Chapter 5, People and the Built Environment
Kovats S; Osborne D
2021
Maternal and newborn health risks of climate change: A call for awareness and global action.
Roos N; Kovats S; Hajat S; Filippi V; Chersich M; Luchters S; Scorgie F; Nakstad B; Stephansson O; CHAMNHA Consortium
2021
Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica
The English National Cohort Study of Flooding & Health: psychological morbidity at three years of follow up.
Mulchandani R; Armstrong B; Beck CR; Waite TD; Amlôt R; Kovats S; Leonardi G; Rubin GJ; Oliver I
2020
BMC public health
Coastal flooding and frontline health care services: challenges for flood risk resilience in the English health care system.
Landeg O; Whitman G; Walker-Springett K; Butler C; Bone A; Kovats S
2019
Journal of health services research & policy
Effect of Insurance-Related Factors on the Association between Flooding and Mental Health Outcomes.
Mulchandani R; Smith M; Armstrong B; English National Study of Flooding and Health Study Group; Beck CR; Oliver I
2019
International journal of environmental research and public health
A Global-Level Model of the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Child Stunting via Income and Food Price in 2030.
Lloyd SJ; Bangalore M; Chalabi Z; Kovats RS; Hallegatte S; Rozenberg J; Valin H; Havlík P
2018
Environmental health perspectives
Europe
Kovats S; Valentini R; Bouwer L; Georgopoulou E; Jacob D; Martin E; Rounsevell M; Soussana J-F
2014
Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.
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