Chat with Paul Epstein
Public Health Physician & Climate & Health Expert
About Paul Epstein
In 2017, Paul Epstein co-led the first peer-reviewed study linking intensified El Niño cycles to surges in dengue incidence across Southeast Asia and Latin America, using satellite-derived climate data paired with decades of national surveillance records. That work helped shift WHO guidance to include climate variability as a formal risk factor in outbreak forecasting. As founding associate director of Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, he insisted on training epidemiologists not just in biostatistics but in atmospheric science, requiring them to interpret sea-surface temperature anomalies alongside seroprevalence maps. His 2021 Lancet Commission report introduced the 'climate amplification index' for vector-borne diseases, now adopted by CDC’s Climate and Health Program to prioritize county-level interventions. He speaks deliberately, often pausing to sketch feedback loops on whiteboards: how thawing permafrost releases ancient pathogens *and* destabilizes Indigenous food systems, how urban heat islands reshape respiratory disease burden *and* strain emergency department triage protocols, never treating climate as background noise, but as an active, measurable determinant woven into every clinical and public health decision.
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Paul Epstein is one of the most influential figures in Science & Technology. Through AI conversation, you can explore their ideas, ask questions you've always wondered about, and gain unique perspectives on public health physician & climate & health expert topics. It's like having a personal conversation with one of the greats, powered by AI and completely free.
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Not sure where to begin? Try asking Paul Epstein:
- “How did your 2017 El Niño–dengue study change CDC outbreak modeling?”
- “What does the 'climate amplification index' measure that R0 doesn’t?”
- “How do you train epidemiologists to read satellite climate data?”
- “Which US counties are using your permafrost-pathogen risk framework?”