Prof Ben Wheeler

Associate Professor

Dr Ben Wheeler is a quantitative health geographer and environmental epidemiologist. His research focuses on:

  1. adverse and beneficial impacts of the environment on public health and wellbeing, especially green/blue space, physical activity and mental health at population scale;
  2. applications of GIS and spatial analysis to link and analyse large-scale health and environmental datasets;
  3. environmental and socio-spatial health inequalities.

He works extensively with large, collaborative interdisciplinary research project teams addressing these issues, in projects supported by funders including ESRC, NERC, NIHR, Wellcome Trust and the European Commission. Ben works with a wide range of partners to translate evidence, especially on links between natural environments and health, to inform public health and environmental policy at local, national and international scales.

Ben co-leads the Exeter MSc in Environment and Human Health, and is a leading member of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Natural Environments and Health at the University of Exeter.

A selection of key research projects:

  • Beyond Greenspace: linking ecological, socioeconomic and health data to deepen our understanding of relationships between nature, health and wellbeing (ESRC ES/K002872/1)

Full details of grants and publications are available here.

Ben is an ASPIRE Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, you can find out more here.

You can follow Ben on Twitter here, and keep up to date with latest projects at the Beyond Greenspace blog.

Related content

Research project

Tackling health inequalities with natural infrastructure

A five-year project focusing on how policies related to planning, managing, and investing in natural environments can reduce health inequalities.
Research project

SWEEP – Informing investment in the environment for health

Understanding how investing in the environment can benefit health and promote mental wellbeing among young people in the South West.
Research project

Beyond Greenspace

How can different types and qualities of natural environment impact human health and wellbeing in the UK?
News

Beyond Greenspace results released

The findings from a two-year in-depth investigation into how different types of green space can affect health have been released today.
Research project

Does living by the coast improve health and wellbeing?

This internationally acclaimed study used data from the UK’s census to show that people are more likely to have good health if they live closer to the sea.
Research project

Urban greenspace valuation toolkit

This Innovate UK funded project has created a web-based greenspace valuation tool, learning from and integrating existing planning tools.
Research project

Would you be happier living in a greener urban area?

18 years of panel data demonstrates that urban green spaces can significantly improve mental wellbeing.