New endowed professorship for climate impacts and public health

Read the original media release here (in German).

Thanks to the support of the Swiss Mobiliar Cooperative Company, the University of Bern is able to establish an Endowed Professorship for Climate Impacts and Public Health in Inhabited Areas.
It is endowed with a total of CHF 2 million and sheds light on an important aspect of climate change that has so far been only partially researched in Switzerland.

Climate change has negative consequences for people’s well-being in Switzerland too. Heatwaves, for example, pose a serious threat to health. Older people, infants and the chronically ill in particular suffer from the physical effects of heat stress. As a study led by the University of Bern showed, 623 people in Switzerland died as a result of the heat in the hot summer of 2022, for example. By comparison, 270 people lost their lives in road accidents in Switzerland in the same year. The latest report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 2022 states that extreme events such as heatwaves, droughts, heavy precipitation and storms will occur more frequently and more intensely than previously assumed. They are causing increasingly greater damage and require society to make greater efforts to adapt. These new challenges will increase rapidly in a warmer world.

Assessing risks and identifying options for action

With the newly created Endowed Professorship for Climate Impacts and Public Health in Inhabited Areas, the University of Bern is responding to these developments. Initially set up for five years, the professorship will study the effects of climate change on human habitats and well-being and comprehensively analyse their interactions. For example, very little is yet known about the effects of climate change on mental health. The goals: to generate new knowledge, to assess the risks and opportunities of climate change for human health and to develop options for action. New strategies for prevention and adaptation are to be derived from the research findings.

Ana Vicedo becomes the new Professor of Climate and Health

The Executive Board of the University of Bern has appointed Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera as Professor of Climate Impacts and Public Health. Ana Vicedo completed her doctorate in environmental exposure, toxicology and health at the University of Valencia. She also completed a master’s degree in epidemiology at the University of Turin. She then conducted research at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, among other places, and was an assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Since 2019, Ana Vicedo has headed the Climate Change and Health group at the University of Bern. With this research unit, the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine and the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research of the University of Bern had already laid the groundwork for the new field of research.
The findings obtained there have attracted national and international attention. “Thanks to the interdisciplinary approach at the interface of preventive medicine and
climate science, this research is unique in Switzerland,” says Virginia Richter, Rector of the University of Bern. “We are delighted that the Mobiliar Professorship for Climate and Health allows us to continue and deepen this successful work.”

Interdisciplinary research for urgently needed solutions

The new endowed professorship expands the successful public-private partnership between Mobiliar and the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research of the University of Bern. The unrestricted guarantee of freedom of teaching and research is laid down in the contract. This means that persons or employees hired under such a contract are free to choose their research projects and methods, are independent in interpreting research results, have freedom of publication and can collaborate with other institutions or companies. Together with the Mobiliar Professorship for Climate Impact Research in the Alpine Region, which has existed since 2010, and the affiliated Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks, the professorship forms an interdisciplinary focus for research into the effects of climate change in Switzerland. “We are proud to expand our commitment in the highly socially relevant field of climate impacts,” explains Belinda Walther Weger, Head of Public Affairs & Sustainability at Mobiliar: “Research funding is an important part of our social engagement.” “Interdisciplinary research plays a key role in developing solutions to the great social challenges of our time,” says Heinz Karrer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the UniBE Foundation, which was established in 2021. “We are therefore extremely pleased that Mobiliar, with its forward-looking commitment, is supporting the University of Bern in this important strategic focus area.”