The research of Mei-Po Kwan addresses health, transport, environmental, and social issues in urban areas through the application of innovative geographic information system (GIS) methods. She focuses on understanding how socioeconomic differences (e.g., gender, income, race, ethnicity, and religion) shape urban residents' everyday experiences and perceptions/use of the built environment. Mei-Po is also interested in studying how specific characteristics of the social and physical environment affect the wellbeing and behavior of different social groups. Current projects attempt to mitigate two fundamental methodological problems while examining health-environment relationships: the uncertain geographic context problem (UGCoP) and the neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP).
M. Helbich, M.H.E. Mute Browning, M-P. Kwan
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Oct 9;142866. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142866. Online ahead of print.
Kim J, Kwan M-P.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
Birenboim A, Helbich M, Kwan M.
Special issue of Computers, Environment, and Urban Systems, ongoing.
Kwan M-P.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15: 1841. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15091841
Helbich, M., de Beurs, D, Kwan, M, O’Connor, R & Groenewegen, P.
Lancet Planet Health. 2018 Mar; 2(3): e134–e139. Published online 2018 Mar. doi: 10.1016/S2542-5196(18)30033-0
Park YM, Kwan M-P.
Health & Place, 43: 85-94
Kwan M-P.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(5): 958-968.
Utrecht University
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning
3584 CB Utrecht
The Netherlands
We know far less about the exposome than we do about the human genome. So far, we only understand about half of the disease burden for which we know the environment plays a role. If we want to prevent people from becoming ill, then we need to understand the other half too. We therefore want to systematically analyse the exposome for the first time. We will start with research into the causes of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The techniques and insights from this research will also be applicable to other chronic conditions.
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