Close
Research Title
Negotiating the weather in recreational running: understanding strategies and response to inform public health
- More about Antonia
Academic Background
- MPhil/PhD Human Geography, University College London, 2020-present
- MSc Environment, Politics and Society, University College London: Dissertation title: Breathing space in the city: A study investigating how recreational runners relate to urban air
BSc (Hons) Geography, King’s College London
- Publications
Hodgson, A. and Hitchings, R. (2018) Urban air pollution perception through the experience of social practices: Talking about breathing with recreational runners in London. Health and Place, 53, 26-33
- Research Interests
My project seeks to examine the complex linkages between weather and health. Using recreational running as an opportunity to deepen knowledge of how exercise practices respond to different weather conditions. Investigating this in London, it will explore how weather is experienced and managed, and what this means for where, when and how people run in increasingly urban societies. This is particularly important with respect to climate change where it is thought changing conditions may influence outdoor activity patterns.
Weather experience in everyday life is still under-researched in geography despite deep-rooted disciplinary interest in nature-society interactions. Although exercise researchers have begun to emphasise the beneficial effects of environmental features such as greenery, they have often downplayed the influence of others such as temperature, rainfall, humidity and air. This project seeks to address these issues and, in doing so, I hope it will provide vital knowledge of how to encourage exercise practices to develop in positive and resilient ways as urban societies evolve under climate change.