Dr Kerstin Sell

Transport has a major impact on health through air pollution, road traffic injuries and lower levels of physical activity linked to car use. It is also a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Encouraging people to travel by public transport, walking or cycling can help tackle these health and environmental challenges.

In 2023, Germany introduced the Deutschlandticket, a low-cost public transport pass that can be used nationwide. Used by around 14 million people each month, it has already been linked to increased public transport use. However, little research has explored its wider health impacts.

Through her Walter Benjamin Fellowship, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Kerstin is studying how the Deutschlandticket affects health. She combines systems thinking and natural experiment evaluation methods to examine the policy’s direct and indirect impacts, with the aim of improving how public policies are evaluated and understood.

Based at the Centre for Public Health, Kerstin works with UK experts in transport and public health evaluation. Her research involves mapping the policy’s wider effects, examining how it was adopted and sustained, and exploring ways to measure its health impacts.

Alongside her fellowship, Kerstin continues to work part-time at LMU Munich, where she researches policies that support physical activity.

Project link: https://gepris.dfg.de/project/552256253?lang=en
Academic profile: https://www.en.ibe.med.uni-muenchen.de/mitarbeiter/mitarbeiter/sell_kerstin/index.html