MCC Webinar

Climate change is the defining public health challenge of the century. During the last decades, we have witnessed how record-breaking temperatures and other extreme weather events are becoming the norm, with substantial health impacts associated with them. Research in this field has recently accelerated as a response to the urgent need to advance knowledge on the adaptation and mitigation mechanisms to help build resilient populations to climate change. In particular, research efforts have been spent on the development and application of new approaches and epidemiological methods, together with the use of novel data resources on health, weather projections, and other climate-related hazards.

The Multi-Country Multi-City (MCC) Collaborative Research Network represents a unique experience on climate change research, and it has been one of the most important sources of evidence on the health impacts of climate and related environmental stressors, such as air pollution, on mortality. Created in 2013 as an informal collaboration between epidemiologists, biostatisticians, and climate scientists, it now constitutes one of the largest data consortium of its kind, with 77 researchers contributing data on mortality and several exposure variables across more than 50 countries around the globe.

The webinar will present the latest developments of the MCC network, ongoing and planned research ideas, and examples of relevant scientific contributions in weather, air pollution and health research. This introduction will serve as the basis for a panel discussion with a unique set of speakers external to the network. The aim of the webinar is to illustrate and discuss how new modes of collaboration and data analysis can contribute to address increasingly complex research questions, translate scientific results in policymaking processes, and boost interdisciplinary partnerships across research fields in the context of climate change research and more broadly, environmental epidemiology.

Chair of the session: Dr Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera (University of Bern)

Introduction to the MCC Collaborative Research Network: Prof Antonio Gasparrini (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)

Panel discussion:

- Chair: Prof Michelle L. Bell (Mary E. Pinchot Professor of Environmental Health, School of the Environment, Yale University)

- Discussants:

• Dr Maria Neira (Director, Environment, Climate Change and Health, World Health Organization)

• Prof Gueladio Sissé (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, leader Chapter 7 6th AR IPCC WG II)

• Dr Bryan Hubbell (National Program Director Air, Climate, and Energy Research Program Office of Research and Development U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.)

• Prof Barbara Hoffmann (Professor of Environmental Epidemiology Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine Medical Faculty Heinrich-Heine-University of Düsseldorf).