Coral Salvador
Coral Salvador of the Climate Epidemiology and Public Health research group, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), at the University of Bern was awarded teh EMS Tromp Award for an outstanding acievement in biometeorology for the publication on “Analyzing the effects of drought at different time scales on cause-specific mortality in South Africa” by C. Salvador; R.Nieto; T.Kapwata; C. Y.Wright; C.Reason; L.Gimeno; A.M.Vicedo-Cabrera, published in April 2024 in Environmental Research Letters.
Investigating the link between different types of droughts and cause-specific mortality in South Africa, Coral Salvador and her colleagues demonstrate that prolonged droughts significantly increase mortality risks, with respiratory deaths showing the strongest connection. The study sheds light on how age and drought duration influence population vulnerability, filling a critical gap in human health research.
Dr. Coral Salvador is a Senior Research Assistant at the University of Bern, working within the interdisciplinary Climate Epidemiology and Public Health (CEPH) research group at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), associated with the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research. Her research develops along the intersection between environmental epidemiology, public health, climate sciences, and sociology of health, with a strong interest in developing interdisciplinary research on the impacts of extreme weather events (particularly but not limited to droughts) on human health in the context of climate change, and the identification of vulnerability profiles. She is currently leading an interdisciplinary and innovative project, “IGIA-SETH: Unraveling the impacts of droughts on human health”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione programme.
She completed her PhD at the University of Vigo (2018-2020) and the National School of Health, Institute of Health Carlos III in Madrid, Spain. Her international PhD research on drought-related health effects in the Iberian Peninsula was pioneering in Europe and awarded cum laude and an extraordinary doctoral prize, resulting in international recognition, including the Tromp Foundation Travel Award in 2018.
After completing her PhD, she held a competitive postdoctoral fellowship from the Xunta of Galicia, Spain, and joined the CEPH (2022-2023) as an external researcher. Her postdoc research focused on identifying inequalities in the effects of weather-related events on human health among vulnerable populations. She returned to the University of Vigo with another highly competitive postdoctoral fellowship (2024-2025).
Dr. Coral Salvador has led and contributed to significant epidemiological studies focused on drought-related health impacts and was invited to contribute to the Annual Review of Public Health with a comprehensive review on the topic. Her research also spans other extreme weather events and health outcomes, with a particular focus on vulnerable populations (e.g., pregnant women, older adults), integrating gender, socioeconomic, and demographic vulnerability dimensions, along with methodological contributions.
Coral Salvador has established strong collaborations across Europe, North America, Brazil, and South Africa, and maintains active participation with international research groups and networks, including the Ibero- American Women for Climate and Health Research, IBWoClimA, collaboration with the Multi- Country Multi-City (MCC) collaborative research network, and FutureMed Cost Action. Her work has been presented at numerous national and international conferences, and she regularly contributes to outreach activities. Furthermore, she has participated in several research projects and is co-coordinating WG1 of the international COST Action FutureMed: A transdisciplinary network to bridge climate science and impacts on health, where she is also a member of the Grant Committee. She has also served as editor for a special issue on droughts and health and actively contributes to the supervision of early-career researchers. She is deeply committed to research and aims to increase her scientific expertise through the expansion of her research network with new collaborations with experts in different areas to address pressing challenges related to climate change effects, breaking barriers between disciplines.