Led by Dr Juana María Delgado-Saborit,
the Environmental Health Research Lab is a cross-disciplinary research group focused on understanding the interrelationship between environmental factors with health and well-being in order to inform environmental health policies that promote healthy, resilient and sustainable societies. It is embedded within the Perinatal Epidemiology, Environmental Health and Clinical Research Group of the Universitat Jaume I.
Health effects of environmental factors
Physico-chemical factors driving airborne toxicity
Environmental risks
Microbiological environmental risks
Health effects of environmental factors
Our research assesses urban environmental factors, such as air pollution, noise, access to green spaces and artificial light at night and their effect on health across the lifespan. Our recent focus is on cognitive and behavioural development during infancy and childhood.
Physico-chemical factors driving airborne toxicity
We aim to understand the role of different physico-chemical parameters of aerosols and gaseous pollutants, such as aerosol size distribution, chemical composition, concentration and source type in eliciting toxic responses upon exposure.
Environmental risks
We have experience in characterising environmental stressors in small and large populations using a combination of samplers, novel sensors, biomarkers, GIS and various modelling techniques, such as land use regression models and learning machine techniques. We apply source apportionment techniques to evaluate the contribution of different sources to environmental risks.
Our research generates scientific knowledge that could be used to develop environmental health policies that will help promote resilient societies towards new environmental risks that might arise as a consequence of urbanization, globalization and climate change.
Microbiological environmental risks
Through the multidisciplinary work of a group of experts in the areas of air pollution, microbiology and environmental epidemiology, we are developing tools for detecting the genetic load of microbiological environmental risks, such as SARS-CoV-2, in aerosols collected in outdoor and indoor spaces.
Our objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of the preventive health measures targeting the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 currently in force in indoor spaces for public use. This evaluation will be very useful for the Administration to refine the current health measures for the prevention of contagions in the event that deficiencies are detected, as well as to propose new measures derived from the advancement of knowledge generated by measuring the genetic load of the SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols in indoor environments.
We are also working to develop an alert tool for microbiological environmental risks, such as SARS-CoV-2. This tool could facilitate decision-making, the design of strategies, the proposal of emergency plans and action measures, as well as alert key agents and sectors for the response; and communicate relevant information to the general and vulnerable population well in advance to reduce the impact of future COVID-19 episodes on the well-being of the population and the economy.
The multidisciplinary team combines the expertise of leading researchers working in three Valencian universities: University Jaume I of Castellón, who is leading the work, and collaborators from the University of Valencia and University Miguel Hernández of Elche.
You can meet the experts in the section "Collaborators" and “Current Team Members”.
Sources of funding
We are grateful to the various public and private organizations that finance our work. Our research is supported by:
The Regional Ministry of Innovation, Universities, Science and Digital Society under the Talented Researcher Support Programme — Plan GenT (CIDEGENT/2019/064).
The Regional Ministry of Innovation, Universities, Science and Digital Society Proyecto 4 del Decreto 180/2020, de 6 de noviembre, del Consell, de aprobación de las bases reguladoras y de concesión directa de ayudas urgentes a proyectos de investigación de excelencia para la anticipación y adaptación a situaciones derivadas de la Covid-19
Fundación BBVA. Ayudas Fundación BBVA a Equipos de Investigación Científica SARS-CoV-2 y COVID-19 (2020).
Contacto
Av. Vicent Sos Baynat, s/n
12071 Castellón de la Plana, Spain