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Two Ripples

Our vision is for everyone to live in healthy spaces that promote healthy minds, so that
where we live and work becomes a foundation for mental health resilience and equity

Overview

Over half the risks to our mental health are a product of the spaces in which we live and the environmental exposures we experience living in them.

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Throughout our lives, as we navigate our daily environments – homes, schools, workplaces, digital spaces – we are confronted with a unique set of exposure risks, from urbanicity and air pollution to climate change and workplace digital-screen hazards to economic deprivation. These exposures significantly affect our brain health, mental health and wellbeing. The annual societal costs of these exposure risks, globally, are projected to reach £37 billion by 2030 and £421 billion by 2050.

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To address these issues, the Environ-Mental Health Nexus is engaged in the following:

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  • Leading in the development of the new interdisciplinary field of environ-mental health.

  • Developing and promoting a complex systems approach to environ-mental health, grounded at the intersection of science, social science and humanities.

  • Innovating transdisciplinary methods platforms for expert and non-expert usage.

  • Leading on local, national and international efforts in evidence-based policy for advancing healthier minds through healthier spaces.

  • ​Supporting governments, policy leaders, community leaders, practitioners and citizens alike to build healthy spaces that promote healthy minds.

  • Co-creating innovative tools and open-source and market-based digital technologies for mitigating the impact of unhealthy spaces on minds.

  • Developing a global ecosystem of regional, national and international stakeholders through world-class research, capacity building and knowledge transfer.

  • Establishing the Environ-Mental Health Nexus as a global hub for this field’s research, education and collaboration.

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Who we are

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Housed in the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, Durham University, the EMHN works with a team of local, national and international scholars, institutes, centres, and public and private stakeholders to address a variety of environ-mental health topics -- from air pollution and brain health to digital wellbeing and mental health technologies to extreme weather events and eco-anxiety to workforce resilience and radiation exposure to ecosystems and urban planning.

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While research led, the EMHN has a strong co-produced policy and application focus, seeking to lead on local, national and international efforts in evidence-based policy for advancing healthier minds through healthier spaces; supporting governments, policy leaders, community leaders, practitioners and citizens alike to build healthy spaces that promote healthy minds; and co-creating innovative tools and open-source and market-based digital technologies for mitigating the impact of unhealthy spaces on minds.

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Across all of this work, the EMHN has a strong lived-experience, life-course and mulit-level, complex sytems focus, seeking to understand the role spaces play in the environmental exposures people variously experience where they live, learn and work and the impact these exposures have on their minds, brains and mental and emotional wellbeing.

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Faculty of Social Sciences, Arthur Holmes Building, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

© 2025 by Brian Castellani.

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