Gregory Wellenius
Profiles

Gregory Wellenius, SCD

Professor, Environmental Health - Boston University School of Public Health

(617) 358-2669
wellenius@bu.edu
Talbot
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Biography

Gregory Wellenius is a Professor on Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and Director of the new BUSPH Center for Climate and Health. He is an environmental epidemiologist committed to reducing the adverse health impacts of continued climate change through research, training, and engagement. Dr. Wellenius also teaches an introductory graduate-level class on quantitative methods and serves on the Research Committee of the Health Effects Institute, as a visiting scientist with Google, and on the executive committee of the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance.

In partnership with a faculty, staff, and students from diverse disciplines, Dr. Wellenius’s research seeks to generate the actionable scientific evidence needed to ensure that our communities are as resilient, sustainable, and healthy as possible. Specifically, his group seeks to: 1) understand the adverse health impacts of extreme weather events, air pollution, and other climate-relevant hazards, 2) assess the effectiveness of strategies to reduce these adverse health impacts, and 3) leverage novel signals to provide timely and actionable insights to public health officials and other key stakeholders. For example, his recent publications highlight the risks posed by extreme heat to our physical and mental health, the limited health benefits of heat warnings and advisories, and the potential utility of data on internet search patterns and population mobility to inform public health.

Prior to joining the faculty at BU in 2020, Dr. Wellenius served as Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health and Director of Brown’s Center for Environmental Health and Technology. Prior to that, he earned dual doctorate degrees from the Departments of Environmental Health and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Cardiovascular Division of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital), and served as Instructor in Medicine at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. He has published extensively on the cardiovascular effects of ambient air pollution, contributed to the US EPA’s 2009 Integrated Science Assessment for Particulate Matter, provided invited expert testimony on this topic before the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, and served as a co-author of the 4th National Climate Assessment of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). He is the 2019 winner of the ISEE Tony McMichael Mid-Term Career Award.

Education

  • Harvard School of Public Health, ScD Field of Study: Environmental Health
  • McGill University, MSc
  • McGill University, BSc

Websites

Classes Taught

  • SPHPH717

Publications

  • Published on 6/17/2022

    Spangler KR, Liang S, Wellenius GA. Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature, Universal Thermal Climate Index, and Other Heat Metrics for US Counties, 2000-2020. Sci Data. 2022 Jun 17; 9(1):326. PMID: 35715416.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 6/16/2022

    Bedi NS, Adams QH, Hess JJ, Wellenius GA. The Role of Cooling Centers in Protecting Vulnerable Individuals from Extreme Heat. Epidemiology. 2022 Sep 01; 33(5):611-615. PMID: 35706096.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 5/31/2022

    Adams QH, Sun Y, Sun S, Wellenius GA. Internet searches and heat-related emergency department visits in the United States. Sci Rep. 2022 May 31; 12(1):9031. PMID: 35641815.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 5/27/2022

    Vaidyanathan U, Sun Y, Shekel T, Chou K, Galea S, Gabrilovich E, Wellenius GA. An evaluation of Internet searches as a marker of trends in population mental health in the US. Sci Rep. 2022 May 27; 12(1):8946. PMID: 35624317.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 4/26/2022

    Bernstein AS, Sun S, Weinberger KR, Spangler KR, Sheffield PE, Wellenius GA. Erratum: "Warm Season and Emergency Department Visits to U.S. Children's Hospitals". Environ Health Perspect. 2022 Apr; 130(4):49002. PMID: 35471948.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 4/1/2022

    Nori-Sarma A, Sun S, Sun Y, Spangler KR, Oblath R, Galea S, Gradus JL, Wellenius GA. Association Between Ambient Heat and Risk of Emergency Department Visits for Mental Health Among US Adults, 2010 to 2019. JAMA Psychiatry. 2022 Apr 01; 79(4):341-349. PMID: 35195664.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 4/1/2022

    Sun S, Cao W, Ge Y, Siegel M, Wellenius GA. Analysis of Firearm Violence During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Apr 01; 5(4):e229393. PMID: 35482307.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/30/2022

    Koch S, Khomenko S, Cirach M, Ubalde-Lopez M, Baclet S, Daher C, Hidalgo L, Lõhmus M, Rizzuto D, Rumpler R, Susilo Y, Venkataraman S, Wegener S, Wellenius GA, Woodcock J, Nieuwenhuijsen M. Impacts of changes in environmental exposures and health behaviours due to the COVID-19 pandemic on cardiovascular and mental health: A comparison of Barcelona, Vienna, and Stockholm. Environ Pollut. 2022 Jul 01; 304:119124. PMID: 35367103.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/1/2022

    Savitz DA, Wellenius GA. Can Cross-Sectional Studies Contribute to Causal Inference? It Depends. Am J Epidemiol. 2022 Mar 01. PMID: 35231933.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/1/2022

    Sears CG, Eliot M, Raaschou-Nielsen O, Poulsen AH, Harrington JM, Howe CJ, James KA, Roswall N, Overvad K, Tjønneland A, Meliker J, Wellenius GA. Urinary Cadmium and Incident Heart Failure: A Case-Cohort Analysis Among Never-Smokers in Denmark. Epidemiology. 2022 03 01; 33(2):185-192. PMID: 34860726.

     Read At: PubMed

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