What is it about the weather? Measuring “meteorosensitivity”

Based at Durham University, we are the UK's first Institute for Medical Humanities. Our research explores human experiences of health and ill-health using an interdisciplinary arts and humanities approach.

Institute for Medical Humanities

Maximilian Gregor Hepach introduces the (historical) conceptual problems accompanying the measurement of weather’s impact on health.

Institute for Medical Humanities, Confluence Building & Penthouses, Collingwood College • Durham University

The<a href="https://medhumsplatform.org/labs/measurement/" title="https://medhumsplatform.org/labs/measurement/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> Measurement Lab</a> is pleased to invite you to this hybrid seminar featuring Dr <a href="https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/maximilian-g-hepach/" title="https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/maximilian-g-hepach/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Maximilian Gregor Hepach</a>, Assistant Professor (Research) in Geography, <a href="https://wellcome.org/" title="https://wellcome.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Wellcome Trust </a>Early Career Fellow, and Fellow at the <a href="https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medical-humanities/" title="https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medical-humanities/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Institute for Medical Humanities</a>.What is it about the weather that impacts human health and well-being? How might these impacts be measured? I will present some early ideas and responses to both these questions, engaging with the long history of ideas around weather (and the human body) as well as the more recent history of research in medical meteorology and human biometeorology. Central to my argument will be how attempts at measurement, at securing weather as a measurable object in order to scientifically assess weather-health impacts, are generative of complicated conceptual problems that foreground the limits of knowledge and experience. “Meteorosensitivity”, the vulnerability or exposure of the mind and body to changes in weather, keeps these problems in focus.About the speakerMaximilian Gregor Hepach is Assistant Professor (Research) in Geography at<a href="https://www.durham.ac.uk/" title="https://www.durham.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> Durham University</a>. His current project titled ‘Under pressure: a historical and cultural geography of meteorosensitivity’ examines the different ways weather’s impact on health and well-being have been understood historically, and how those differences play into present day weather-health warning practices under pressure from climate change. Previously, he was project coordinator and postdoctoral research with Weather Reports (2022-2024, Potsdam, AHRC &amp; DFG).His recent publications include “Reading Wind Diffractively: Elemental Chiasmus as Theory and Method”: exploring, amongst other aspects, the relationship between measurement and experience with relation to wind: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/001c.127960" title="https://doi.org/10.1525/001c.127960" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1525/001c.127960</a><a href="https://hepach.org/" title="https://hepach.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://hepach.org/</a>This event is free to attend. The virtual link will be shared closer to the date.This seminar is part of the Measurement in the History of Medicine Speaker Series, co-hosted by the <a href="https://medhumsplatform.org/" title="https://medhumsplatform.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities</a> and the <a href="https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/history-medicine-disease/" title="https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/history-medicine-disease/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease</a> at Durham University.