Climate Change, Nutrition and Health

Prof. Dr. Ina Danquah leads the working group “Climate Change, Nutrition and Health” at the Heidelberg Institute for Global Health (HIGH). Since October 2023, she has been appointed as Hertz-Chair “Innovation for Planetary Health” and Director at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn.

In Heidelberg, Ina Danquah coordinates the DFG-funded Research Unit “Climate Change and Health in sub-Saharan Africa” (FOR2936, www.cch.africa.de). The Research Unit has been established in January 2020 and focuses on three climate-sensitive health outcomes (undernutrition, malaria, heat stress) in two exemplary regions in sub-Saharan Africa (Siaya County, Kenya and Kossi Province, Burkina Faso). In the second funding phase, this international consortium aims at identifying impacts of climate change on these health outcomes, establishing and evaluating viable adaptation strategies against these impacts, and projecting the impacts and adaptation effects for future climate scenarios.

In addition, Ina Danquah is Principal Investigator of the Cohort on Plant-based diets (COPLANT) Study in Heidelberg (www.coplant-studie.de). The COPLANT study is a multi-center, prospective cohort study in Germany and Austria that aims at identifying the long-term health and environmental consequences of different forms of diets, including vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, and mixed diets. Over a period of 3 years, each study site will recruit 700-800 healthy adults to document their dietary practices, examine their metabolic status, and record markers of dietary sustainability. In Heidelberg, the team is particularly interested in recruiting individuals from a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The COPLANT Study will start in the last quarter of 2023.