The One Health framework recognises a fundamental truth: human health, animal health, and environmental health are inseparable. Understanding our environment is the key to predicting and preventing emerging health crises affecting all Australians. As climate change accelerates, we’re witnessing unprecedented health challenges at the intersection of environmental change and disease. Extreme heat events, bushfire smoke, droughts, air pollution, allergens and shifting disease patterns are increasingly threatening Australian communities. This webinar brings together three leading researchers pioneering solutions to these challenges: Dr Ivan Hanigan (Curtin University) directs the WHO Collaborating Centre for Climate Change and Health Impact Assessment and leads the Data and Decision Support theme of the HEAL National Research Network. His research disentangles health effects of environmental changes from social factors, studying phenomena from bushfire smoke impacts on heart disease to droughts’ effects on mental health. Professor Jochen Mueller (University of Queensland) is an Australian Laureate Fellow leading a team in exposure science at the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences. His work on wastewater-based epidemiology and human biomonitoring provides innovative approaches to assessing community exposure to environmental stressors. Dr Aiden Price (Queensland University of Technology) is project manager of the AusEnHealth platform, which enables analysis of over 100 variables contributing to environmental health risk and provides vulnerability indices to identify at-risk populations. Together, they’ll demonstrate how integrated environmental monitoring transforms our capacity to forecast health risks from extreme heat, vector-borne diseases, and respiratory conditions—moving us from reactive responses to proactive protection.
Speakers
- Dr Ivan Hanigan (Curtin University)
- Professor Jochen Mueller (University of Queensland)
- Dr Aiden Price (Queensland University of Technology)