Current students

As more and more people will live in cities, new urban planning is needed to improve quality of life and save the environment. Specifically, in urban cities, the loss of green areas and tree canopy, with combustion transports, leads to a significant heat island effect, which increases health risks, further exploited by global warming. Developing urban analytics tools focused on aspects related to urban healthcare and citizens quality of life, investigating the complex spatial correlation among cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, heatwave events, city services and health infrastructures is crucial for the most effective planning and design of urban policies relevant to health and to support city sustainable transition. The principal objective of the thesis is to explore the relationship between cardiovascular events and meteorological factors and air quality during heat waves in the metropolitan city of Milan. Additional scope of the thesis is to: identify the areas of urban heat island in Milan and the persons at most risk of cardiovascular diseases; prepare forecasting models for medical facilities to strengthen the system during heat waves; mitigate the influence of heat in the city (assess the influence of green areas, building materials, air conditioning). The aims are achieved using data science techniques, including descriptive statistics methods and machine learning models.