BIOGRAPHY
George Downward, MD, PhD
Universitair Medisch Centrum (UMC) Utrecht, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care
Dr. Downward is an Assistant Professor at UMC Utrecht and concurrently is a researcher at the Institute of Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS), Utrecht University, where his research focus examines how environmental and personal risk factors contribute to communicable and non-communicable disease. He has a special interest in environmental health, vulnerable groups, and low-middle income countries.
He undertook his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Otago, New Zealand from 2005 to 2005. Afterwards, he received a degree in Master of Science in Public Health from Umeå University, Sweden. In 2015, George was awarded his PhD in Environmental Epidemiology from Utrecht University on the topic of “Quantification and characterization of exposure to smoky coal and its constituents and malignant and non-malignant respiratory effects.”
He is a member of several consortia, including the Precision Medicine for more Oxygen (P4O2) and Household Air Pollution Consortium (HAPCO), and has received multiple grants and recognition in the past years, including the UGlobe Center for Global Challenges Interdisciplinary Project called “The Clean Air Act”. George’s publications mostly focus on air pollution, as exampled by a recent article on Household fuel use and adverse pregnancy outcomes in a Ghanaian cohort study.