Ben is Professor in Environment, Health and Inequalities. He is a health geographer and environmental epidemiologist with wide ranging research interests in environment-health interconnections.
Ben’s PhD was in the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol, on the relationship between socio-economic health and environmental inequalities in the UK. His first post-doctoral research position was at Victoria University of Wellington School of Earth Sciences, in a unit funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Health to carry out geographical public health research. Subsequent research positions have been at the University of Sheffield Department of Geography, and back at the Department of Social Medicine at Bristol. He has also worked in public health and with environmental consultancies. Ben has been at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health since its beginnings in 2010.
Ben applies geographical and epidemiological methods to research the beneficial and adverse impacts that the environment can have on human health and health inequalities. His research focuses on health impacts of green/blue infrastructure, especially in terms of population-scale prevention associated with physical activity and mental health. Related research interests include: impacts of nature-based solutions, especially in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation actions; application of GIS and spatial analysis to link and analyse large-scale health and environmental datasets; and links between socio-spatial environmental inequalities and health inequalities.