REGISTER TO ATTEND THIS ONLINE SEMINAR
University of Bristol staff and students also have the option to attend this event in-person. Please see internal event advert.
The Cabot Institute for the Environment and the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research invite you to attend the next Climate Change and Health seminar.
In this seminar, Wendy Fang and Tim Leeder will explore how climate change and air pollution may be shaping the global rise in dementia, from long-term international trends to emerging evidence on the potential role of airborne metal particulates in triggering neurodegenerative disease.
Wendy Fang - Exploring the long-term effect of environmental factors on dementia.
Wendy is a PhD student in the School of Geography at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on exploring the long-term effects of temperature and air pollution on human health, with a particular focus on dementia, and on understanding how evidence can support older people in adapting. She became interested in climate change and health during her master's degree and has been exploring this area ever since.
Abstract
The effect of temperature and air pollution on the incidence of dementia is hard to study in individuals because of the long latency period of dementia, meaning that 20+ years of pollution, climate, and dementia data would be required. The incidence of dementia differs between countries, and the reasons for this may shed light on the risk factors for dementia. Here, Wendy presents results from an ongoing project that integrated selected country-level surface temperature, PM2.5, and NO₂ concentration data from the past twenty years, together with national proportions of elderly and annual numbers of dementia incidence cases among older populations. The study used data from 50 countries to examine decadal trends in climate change, air pollution, population ageing, and dementia incidence. This ecological study provides evidence on the associations between country-level mean temperature and air pollution with dementia incidence.
Tim Leeder - Aerosol Mediated Risks of Dementia - are metal particulates significant?
Tim has worked within many different industries from Investment Banking to Technology Startups and a stint at Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK). Currently a Senior Research Fellow in Applied Biosciences, he is the recipient of a five - year Fellowship that started as an intellectual curiosity while working for Professor Jeremy O’Brien in the Centre for Quantum Photonics and builds upon his ‘hobby’ of a decade of self-funded research into Alzheimer’s and Dementia.
Abstract
There is consensus over much of the landscape of neurodegenerative disease; in the case of Alzheimer’s and Dementias the scale of costs to the individual and society are well-characterised, as are the pathologies that accompany disease.
These appear to be diseases of the modern world and during the course of the last century there has been significant industrial development and technological innovations. This has seen significant improvements in the prevention and treatment of many diseases and yet we see an (apparently) inexorable rise in the incidence of dementias. The Aerosol Mediated Modifiable Risks of Alzheimer’s Disease Fellowship explores a possible link between the rise in particulate matter emissions, principally: pollutants from internal combustion engine sources (found ubiquitously across the globe) and the biochemical initiation of the neurodegenerative processes that underpin Alzheimer’s and Dementia.