Impact

The large-scale natural experiment provided by global industrialisation and urban migration offers an opportunity to deepen our understanding of how humans adapt to novel environments. Our work aims to enhance understanding not only of the biological consequences of recent environmental industrialisation, but also of the adaptive mechanisms that enabled our species to thrive across diverse environments over the past 300,000+ years. Contemporary urban migration, for example, allows us to examine how the human hierarchical adaptive system responds to environmental stressors to preserve homeostasis, function and evolutionary fitness

Urban living poses significant risks to physical and mental health. Exposure to nature can enhance human health and biological function, but such treatment is rarely prescribed by health professionals, largely because the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Our research examines how natural and industrial environments affects human biology, therefore providing the evidence base needed to support nature-based therapeutic interventions. 

Industrialisation has driven economic growth at the cost of severe ecological degradation, contributing to climate disruption, freshwater scarcity, biodiversity and habitat loss, pollution, poor soil microbial health and declining food security. These crises now threaten human health and risk reversing recent global health gains. By advancing research on nature’s role in human health, our work helps reframe natural environments as essential to human life, strengthening the case for conservation and ecological regeneration efforts.