Healthy Environments, Healthy People

Healthy Environments Healthy People (HEHP) aims to improve the health of people and places by studying the interaction between the environment and human health. This includes studies of blood-feeding insects and the viruses they carry, the epidemiology of infectious disease, and how environmental condition impacts human and animal health. The group’s overarching interest is in the intersection between environmental and public health. HEHP is also part of the Centre for Population Health Research, and has a presence at both City East campus and on Level 8 in the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). Membership of HEHP is drawn from multiple schools in UniSA.

Our Research

Medical entomology: studies of blood-feeding arthropods (incl. mosquitoes, lice, mites), virus detection

Epidemiology: statistical and mathematical modelling of infectious disease and health determinants

Human health and ecology: wetland health, ecosystem functionality

Citizen Science and urban ecology: including use of citizen science and nature play research

Evolutionary and Environmental Biology: genetic and field studies of plants and animals 

Current research projects

Our capabilities

• Insect identification
• Statistical modelling
• Field studies of plants and animals
• Laboratory studies of insect behaviour
• High throughput sequencing
• Systematics
• Phylogenetics
• Molecular approaches to evolutionary studies