Junior research group on effects of weather on health receives federal funding

2 February 2023, by Andrea Bükow

The "Junior Research Group on Climate, Environment and Health: Effects of Weather on Human Health (HeWeCon)" receives funding of approximately 1.5 million euros from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The goal of the research group, led by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), is to determine the effect of weather conditions and extreme weather phenomena on the health of the population.

The scientists want to investigate the relationship between weather and health with the help of machine learning in order to identify weather conditions that are detrimental to health as well as weather-sensitive health conditions. For this purpose, the researchers will use anonymized health insurance data, through which individual characteristics and risk factors such as gender, age, nursing dependency as well as previous illnesses can be taken into account. Based on this, a prediction tool will be developed to assess the risk for susceptible individuals in different weather conditions. This tool can be implemented as a weather warning system and allows targeted approaches to risk groups for prevention. At the same time, resource planning in health care will be supported as well as health and health economic effects during extreme weather conditions, such as additional health care costs, will be calculated.

Contact for queries: Dr. Claudia Konnopka, Institute of Health Economics and Health Services Research