Wednesday 19 February 2025, 10h-11h30 CET
About the webinar
Air pollution and environmental noise significantly impact respiratory and cardiovascular health. This webinar presents the latest advancements in exposure-response functions (ERFs), focusing on NO₂ and COPD, O₃ and asthma, PM2.5 and lung cancer, and traffic noise and cardiovascular disease.
In collaboration with the BEST-COST project, the session features insights from systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and interactive discussions, offering valuable updates on environmental health research. Join us to explore these critical findings and their implications for public health.
Programme
| 10h00 | Welcome and Introduction — Vanessa Gorasso, Sciensano, Belgium |
| 10h05 | Introduction BEST-COST and ERFs — Juanita Haagsma, Erasmus MC, The Netherlands |
| 10h10 | NO₂ and COPD — Tessa Haverkate, Erasmus MC, The Netherlands Download the presentation |
| 10h20 | O₃ and asthma — Hamid Y. Hassen, VITO, Belgium Download the presentation |
| 10h30 | General discussion and Q&A |
| 10h45 | PM2.5 and lung cancer — Mariana Corda, Egas Moniz School of Health and Science, Portugal Download the presentation |
| 10h55 | Traffic noise and cardiovascular disease — Periklis Charalampous, UCLouvain, Belgium, and Erasmus MC, The Netherlands Download the presentation |
| 11h05 | General discussion and Q&A |
| 11h20 | Closing remarks — Juanita Haagsma, Erasmus MC, The Netherlands |
Speakers
Juanita Haagsma
Dr. Juanita Haagsma, PhD in health sciences, works as Assistant Professor at the Department of Public Health at the Erasmus MC, University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research focuses mainly on burden of disease estimates of injury and quantifying long-term consequences of injury in particular. For several years, she worked as Assistant Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, where she was a member of the injuries team of the Global Burden of Disease study. She was responsible for the development and implementation of methods to calculate the global burden of injury. In addition, she has conducted several studies on disability weights, including a large disability weight study that collected responses from more than 30,000 people from four European countries.
Tessa Haverkate
Tessa Haverkate, Msc. at the Erasmus MC, University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands has a background in global health research, with a strong passion for planetary health. Her work focuses on the intersection of environmental risk factors and lung diseases. At Erasmus MC, she has been actively involved in the BEST-COST project, dedicating the past months to studying the NO₂-COPD risk pair.
Hamid Hassen
As a researcher with over 5 years of experience, Hamid Y. Hassen’s role harnesses the power of statistical analysis and clinical practices to advance public health. Previously, as a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Antwerp, he contributed to the SPICES project, focusing on groundbreaking epidemiological studies. His core competencies lie in epidemiology, medical statistics, and machine learning, reflecting his dedication to improving healthcare outcomes through data-driven insights. Committed to innovation in epidemiology, his mission aligns with VITO's, aiming to bring diverse perspectives and expertise to tackle complex health challenges.
Mariana Corda
Mariana Oliveira Corda holds a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry (University of Aveiro) and a master's degree in Public Health (Nova School of Public Health). Currently, Mariana is enrolled in the doctoral program in Public Health (Nova School of Public Health) and is a researcher fellow on the BEST-COST project at Egas Moniz Center for Interdisciplinary Research. She has been a member of several national and international projects. Her scientific interests include public health, environmental health, epidemiology, health impact assessments, and burden of disease analysis.
Periklis Charalampous
Dr. Periklis Charalampous is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Health and Society, Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. His research primarily focuses on summary measures of population health and their methodological design choices. Periklis derived disability weights for environmental noise-related health states and contributed to the development of new exposure-response functions for transportation noise sources. He is currently working on the burden of disease attributable to natural hazards, including earthquakes and heatwaves.
