Gregory Wellenius
Profiles

Gregory Wellenius, SCD

Professor, Environmental Health - Boston University School of Public Health

(617) 358-2269
wellenius@bu.edu
Talbot
View Full Profile at BUMC

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.

Other Positions

  • Director, Center for Climate & Health - Boston University School of Public Health

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 2/29/2024

    Salas RN, Burke LG, Phelan J, Wellenius GA, Orav EJ, Jha AK. Impact of extreme weather events on healthcare utilization and mortality in the United States. Nat Med. 2024 Feb 29. PMID: 38424213.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 2/27/2024

    Mandal S, Rajiva A, Kloog I, Menon JS, Lane KJ, Amini H, Walia GK, Dixit S, Nori-Sarma A, Dutta A, Sharma P, Jaganathan S, Madhipatla KK, Wellenius GA, de Bont J, Venkataraman C, Prabhakaran D, Prabhakaran P, Ljungman P, Schwartz J. Nationwide estimation of daily ambient PM2.5 from 2008 to 2020 at 1 km2 in India using an ensemble approach. PNAS Nexus. 2024 Mar; 3(3):pgae088. PMID: 38456174.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 2/21/2024

    Sun Y, Milando CW, Spangler KR, Wei Y, Schwartz J, Dominici F, Nori-Sarma A, Sun S, Wellenius GA. Short term exposure to low level ambient fine particulate matter and natural cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory morbidity among US adults with health insurance: case time series study. BMJ. 2024 Feb 21; 384:e076322. PMID: 38383039.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 2/14/2024

    Stowell JD, Sun Y, Gause EL, Spangler KR, Schwartz J, Bernstein A, Wellenius GA, Nori-Sarma A. Warm season ambient ozone and children's health in the USA. Int J Epidemiol. 2024 Feb 14; 53(2). PMID: 38553030.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 1/26/2024

    de Bont J, Nori-Sarma A, Stafoggia M, Banerjee T, Ingole V, Jaganathan S, Mandal S, Rajiva A, Krishna B, Kloog I, Lane K, Mall RK, Tiwari A, Wei Y, Wellenius GA, Prabhakaran D, Schwartz J, Prabhakaran P, Ljungman P. Impact of heatwaves on all-cause mortality in India: A comprehensive multi-city study. Environ Int. 2024 Feb; 184:108461. PMID: 38340402.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 1/16/2024

    Power MC, Bennett EE, Lynch KM, Stewart JD, Xu X, Park ES, Smith RL, Vizuete W, Margolis HG, Casanova R, Wallace R, Sheppard L, Ying Q, Serre ML, Szpiro AA, Chen JC, Liao D, Wellenius GA, van Donkelaar A, Yanosky JD, Whitsel E. Comparison of PM2.5 Air Pollution Exposures and Health Effects Associations Using 11 Different Modeling Approaches in the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS). Environ Health Perspect. 2024 Jan; 132(1):17003. PMID: 38226465.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 12/15/2023

    Wu X, Weinberger KR, Wellenius GA, Dominici F, Braun D. Assessing the causal effects of a stochastic intervention in time series data: are heat alerts effective in preventing deaths and hospitalizations? Biostatistics. 2023 Dec 15; 25(1):57-79. PMID: 36815555.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 11/18/2023

    Subramaniam NK, Gagnon N, Makhani K, Kukolj N, Mouradian MH, Giles BH, Srikannan H, Fruh V, Meliker J, Wellenius GA, Mann KK. In vitro and in vivo approaches to assess atherosclerosis following exposure to low-dose mixtures of arsenic and cadmium. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2023 Dec 15; 481:116763. PMID: 37980961.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 10/17/2023

    Sears CG, Healy EJ, Soares LF, Palermo D, Eliot M, Li Y, Fruh V, Babalola T, James KA, Harrington JM, Wellenius GA, Tjønneland A, Raaschou-Nielsen O, Meliker JR. Urine antimony and risk of cardiovascular disease - A prospective case-cohort study in Danish Non-Smokers. Environ Int. 2023 Nov; 181:108269. PMID: 37866238.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 10/11/2023

    Dahlquist M, Frykman V, Hollenberg J, Jonsson M, Stafoggia M, Wellenius GA, Ljungman PLS. Short-Term Ambient Air Pollution Exposure and Risk of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Sweden: A Nationwide Case-Crossover Study. J Am Heart Assoc. 2023 Nov 07; 12(21):e030456. PMID: 37818697.

     Read At: PubMed

View 213 more publications:View Full Profile at BUMC

News & In the Media

View all profiles