While the acute effects of extremeclimate conditions are well-documented, the long-term impacts of climate changeremain understudied and underestimated. Climate-related exposures can affecthealth outcomes at different times, triggering biological responses thataccumulate silently over the lifespan. These effects may take years tomanifest, resulting in a greater-than-expected disease burden, early-onsetmultimorbidity before old age, and potential impacts on future generations.However, timely and appropriate interventions may help modify these effects,mitigating their long-term consequences.

This project, based on Italian birthcohort data, aims at adopting of a life-course epidemiology approach to:

- estimatethe health burden attributable to climate change through (i) identification ofcritical time windows of vulnerability during which exposures can influence thecourse of trajectories favouring the development of long-term outcomes; (2)characterisation of chains of risk associated with adverse environmentalconditions, health damaging behaviours, illnesses, and their interactionsacross the lifespan.

- assesshow uneven hazard distributions shape life-course trajectories in differentcommunities in relation to their characteristics (rural/urban, climate zones,socio-economic index)

- assessthe impact of supportive actions to alter unfavourable health trajectories,including early preventive interventions, mitigation strategies, modifiablecontextual factors.

‍

Multidisciplinary attitude, basicknowledge in quantitative research (biostatistics, epidemiology, statisticalsoftware), interest in health inequalities, environmental determinants of humanhealth and public health, teamwork, willingness to learn and acquire new skills.

‍

The research team is composed of a multidisciplinary group ofscientists working in environmental, life-course, molecular, and cancerepidemiology, including epidemiologists, biostatisticians, and molecularbiologists. The team collaborates with a national network of birth cohortresearchers and is a member of the Italian Network for Environmental Health. Ithas access to birth cohorts such as NINFEA (www.progettoninfea.it) andPiccolipiu (www.piccolipiu.it). The team is based at the Department of MedicalSciences, University of Turin, a large multidisciplinary department withresearch interests ranging from basic biological research to clinicalapplications, covering 16 medical disciplines.