Prof Ben Wheeler

Professor in Environment, Health & Inequalities

Prof Ben Wheeler is a quantitative health geographer and environmental epidemiologist. His research focuses on:

  1. Adverse and beneficial impacts of the environment on public health and wellbeing, especially green/blue space, physical activity and mental health at population scale;
  2. Health impacts of nature-based solutions, especially in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation actions;
  3. Applications of GIS and spatial analysis to link and analyse large-scale health and environmental datasets;
  4. Links between environmental inequalities and socio-spatial health inequalities.

Ben works extensively with large, collaborative interdisciplinary research project teams addressing these issues, in projects that have been supported by funders including ESRC, NERC, NIHR, Wellcome Trust and the European Commission. Ben works with a wide range of partners to translate evidence, especially on links between natural environments and health, to inform public health and environmental policy at local, national and international scales. He is co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Natural Environments and Health.

Key recent projects

  • 2024-29: Tackling health inequalities through green/blue infrastructure [Population Health Career Scientist Award]. PI (fellowship). NIHR. Health inequalities and natural infrastructure | Beyond Greenspace
  • 2023-27: RESONATE: Building individual and community resilience through nature-based therapies. Exeter PI, Case Study 1 & 2 lead. EC Horizon Europe/UKRI. Resonate (resonate-horizon.eu)
  • 2021-26: Groundswell: Community-engaged and Data-informed Systems Transformation of Urban Green and Blue Space for Population Health. WP6 co-lead (policy & governance). UK Prevention Research Partnership. GroundsWell
  • 2020-2023 Health and economic impacts of urban heat islands and greenspace (HEROIC). Co-I. Wellcome Trust. HEROIC
  • 2019-2023: REGREEN: Fostering nature-based solutions for smart, green and healthy urban transitions in Europe and China. Exeter PI / WP4 lead (wellbeing valuation).  EC Horizon 2020. Home – REGREEN (regreen-project.eu)

Full details of grants and publications are available here.

Ben is an ASPIRE Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, you can find out more here.

You can follow Ben on LinkedIn, and keep up to date with latest projects at the Beyond Greenspace blog.

 

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Tackling health inequalities with natural infrastructure

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SWEEP – Informing investment in the environment for health

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Beyond Greenspace

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