Associate ProfessorTim Chambers

Tim Chambers is an Associate Professor and environmental epidemiologist at the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury.

My research examines how environmental exposures and public policy shape population health and health equity in Aotearoa New Zealand. My current programme focuses particularly on drinking water quality and health, including nitrate contamination, microbial water quality, reproductive and child health, cancer, and enteric disease.

I use large-scale linked health and administrative data, environmental monitoring data, geospatial methods and exposure modelling to investigate environmental health risks at a population level. A major focus of my work is developing better ways to characterise historical drinking water exposures, including the integration of water-quality monitoring, spatial data and machine-learning approaches. This work enables national epidemiological studies that would otherwise not be possible.

Recent research includes a national cohort study of more than 735,000 births examining prenatal nitrate exposure and preterm birth, alongside work on nitrate and congenital anomalies, drinking water quality and enteric disease and the potential relationship between nitrate exposure and cancer.

My research has a strong translation and policy focus. I am interested not only in identifying environmental health risks, but in improving environmental monitoring, public-health surveillance and the evidence used to set drinking water and environmental standards. This includes a particular interest in freshwater and drinking water issues within the Ngāi Tahu takiwā and in ensuring that research contributes to equitable health outcomes.

I welcome collaborations and postgraduate research projects in environmental epidemiology, drinking water and freshwater health, spatial epidemiology, linked administrative data, environmental exposure modelling and evidence-informed public-health policy.