Website: http://geography.uwo.ca/faculty/luginaah/index.html

Research involves

Improving understanding of how the environment and disease interact, particularly among the most vulnerable.

Research relevance

This research will increase understanding of environmental issues and pandemic prevention as well as contribute to better health care policies.

The risks of changing environmental and health landscapes

We are increasingly at risk from both indoor and outdoor pollution, and from emerging epidemics and pandemics. As the environment and health landscapes change, health geographers and policy-makers are facing unfamiliar and broad social and ecological challenges. They are increasingly asking not only how the environment affects health, but how specific places affect people.

Dr. Isaac Luginaah, Canada Research Chair in Health Geography, aims to identify, quantify and reduce the health risks to people posed by environmental, social, behavioural and local factors.

For some of society’s most vulnerable groups, health inequalities go hand in hand with social and environmental inequalities. The poor are vulnerable to both major environmental hazards and deficiencies in the provision of health services. They are also most at risk for pandemics.

Luginaah is working on the health effects of environmental exposure at the community level, particularly among Aboriginal peoples, the chronically ill and the most vulnerable, such as children, the elderly and the poor. He is also examining the links between environment, migration and household food security in Ghana and the links between these factors in HIV/AIDS epidemics in Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania.

Luginaah’s research will provide policy-makers and health service providers with better understanding of how to improve the health of populations in Canada and abroad. His work will also help prevent HIV/AIDS and contribute to health care policy in Africa.