Rate My Professor Simon Hales

Professor Simon Hales is a Research Professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington, within the Faculty of Medicine. He holds a BA and MB BChir from the University of Cambridge and an MPH and PhD from the University of Otago. As an environmental epidemiologist, his research interests encompass the atmospheric environment and global health issues. Current projects include empirical modelling of air pollution and health; assessing health aspects of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change; estimating the global burden of disease attributable to climate change; empirical modelling of communicable disease in relation to climate; and health co-benefits of climate change mitigation. He serves as Co-Director of the Public Health Communication Centre and is associated with HEIRU.

Simon Hales has made substantial contributions to the field through high-impact publications. Among his most cited works are the IPCC Working Group II contribution "Climate change 2007: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability" (Cambridge University Press, 2007; 5127 citations), "Climate change and human health: present and future risks" (The Lancet, 2006; 3798 citations), "Potential effect of population and climate changes on global distribution of dengue fever: an empirical model" (The Lancet, 2002; 1463 citations), "Ecosystems and human well-being: health synthesis" (World Health Organization, 2005; 727 citations), and contributions to "Comparative quantification of health risks" (World Health Organization, 2004; 1878 citations). His body of work has amassed over 14,000 citations on Google Scholar, reflecting significant influence in epidemiology and environmental health sciences. Recent publications include "Future temperature-related labour loss due to premature deaths" (Environmental Research, 2026), "Risk, burden, and trend of infectious disease hospitalisations associated with floods" (Lancet Planetary Health, 2025), and analyses of drinking water sources protection (The Briefing, 2026).