معرفی
Zhebin Yu is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, where they lead research on the urban environment's impact on respiratory health. Their work focuses on how air pollution, built environment characteristics, and green spaces affect children's and young people's health, particularly regarding asthma development and long-term respiratory outcomes. Yu is part of Olena Gruzieva's research group on Urban environment and children's and youth health, contributing to major international projects like EXPANSE.
Yu's research interests center on environmental epidemiology, particularly the urban exposome - the comprehensive measure of all environmental exposures from conception onwards. Their work investigates how combinations of air pollution, lack of green space, and urban design contribute to respiratory diseases across the life course. Key findings include that children living in high pollution areas have an 18% greater risk of developing asthma, and that young people in highly polluted areas are 28% more likely to suffer from long COVID. The most hazardous urban environments (characterized by high pollution, limited green space, and concrete-dominated landscapes) increase asthma risk by 35% in children and 27% in adults.
Yu's publication record demonstrates consistent contributions to understanding environmental health risks, with recent work analyzing data from over 349,000 participants across 14 European cohorts. Their research shows that almost 12% of asthma cases can be directly attributed to urban environmental factors. Current projects examine how improved air quality affects lung development from childhood to adulthood and investigate the joint effects of multiple environmental factors on respiratory health.
- An exposome approach to decipher the role of urban environment in lung health from childhood to early adulthood (Swedish Research Council, 2025-2028)
- Urban exposome and asthma incidence from childhood to young adulthood (Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare, 2024-2025)
- Urban environment and risk of asthma from childhood to adulthood (Swedish Research Council for Environment Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, 2024-2025)
Yu's research has significant implications for urban planning and public health policy, demonstrating that rethinking how we design and manage urban spaces could prevent asthma cases and improve quality of life through policies that reduce air pollution, expand green spaces, and create infrastructure more resilient to extreme temperatures.
