Baltazar Nunes

Visiting assistant professor in the area of Statistics and Epidemiology and integrated member of the Public Health Research Center (CISP).

Assistant researcher in the Epidemiology Department of the Dr. Ricardo Jorge National Health Institute, where he is also responsible for the Epidemiological Research Unit.

He holds a PhD and a master's degree in Probability and Statistics from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon.

His areas of interest are population-based epidemiology, with a special focus on infectious diseases and environmental health, studies of the effectiveness and impact of vaccines and vaccination programs, the effect of extreme weather events and the development of epidemiological surveillance systems.

Epidemiology and Statistics (Specialization Course in Occupational Medicine)

Statistics for Public Health Physicians (Specialization Course in Public Health)

Seminar in Epidemiology (Doctoral Program in Public Health)

Supervisor of the following works (already completed): 1 doctoral thesis and 6 master's dissertations.

Mafalda Sousa-Uva | “The effect of retirement on chronic disease” | PhD in Public Health, Epidemiology | National School of Public Health, NOVA University Lisbon. 2015. Supervisor: Carlos Matias Dias.

Wolmir Péres | “Health and climatic events: occurrence, impacts and coping” | PhD in Public Health, National School of Public Health. Co-supervision: Ana Russo (FCUL)

Ausenda Machado |“Measuring the impact of influenza vaccination national strategy among the at risk Portuguese population” | PhD in Public Health - Epidemiology, National School of Public Health. | Co-supervision: Amparo Larrauri (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Carlos Dias (NOVA NSPH)

Irina Kislaya | “Measurement error in self-reported risk factors for cardiovascular disease: results from the first Portuguese Health Examination Survey” | PhD in Public Health - Epidemiology. National School of Public Health | Co-supervision: Hanna Tolonen (THL, Finland), Julian Perelman (NOVA NSPH)

Vânia Gaio | “Association between air pollution exposure and cardiovascular parameters: Linkage between the first National Health Examination Survey and the Environmental data” | PhD in Public Health - Epidemiology. National School of Public Health | Co-supervision: Carlos Dias (NOVA NSPH), Carla Nunes (NOVA NSPH)

Participation in several projects funded by FCT, Horizon 2020 and other programs:

2015-2018 – I-MOVE+ Integrated Monitoring of Vaccines Effects in Europe: a platform to measure and compare effectiveness and impact of influenza and pneumococcal vaccines and vaccination strategies in the elderly. Horizon 2020 grant 634446-2 PHC-17-2014 - Coordinator Portuguese component

2013 a 2016 – “Improvement of epidemiological health information to support public health decision and management in Portugal – towards reduced inequalities, improved health and bilateral cooperation”[1º Inquérito Nacional de Saúde com Exame Físico] INSA, projeto pré-definido do programa PT06 EEAGrants 2009-2014 - executive coordinator

2014 a 2015 - "Modeling and forecasting the effect of extreme cold in the population health: the basis for the development of a real-time warning system" - EXPL/DTP-SAP/1373/2013 - Co IR

2013 a 2014 – “Exploring the toxic effects of mixtures of mycotoxins in infant food and potential health impact”. PTDC/DTP-FTO/0417/2012 - team member

2012 a 2013 – “Assessing the impact of vaccination with conjugate vaccines on the epidemiology of invasive pneumococal disease in Europe” European Centre for Prevention and Disease Control; Coordinator Portuguese component

Rodrigues E, Machado A, Silva S, Nunes B. Excess pneumonia and influenza hospitalizations associated with influenza epidemics in Portugal from season 1998/1999 to 2014/2015. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2018 Jan;12(1):153-160. doi: 10.1111/irv.12501. PubMed PMID: 29460423; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5818339.

Gaio V, Antunes L, Namorado S, Barreto M, Gil A, Kyslaya I, Rodrigues AP, Santos A, Bøhler L, Castilho E, Vargas P, do Carmo I, Nunes B, Dias CM; INSEF Research group. Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Portugal: Results from the First Portuguese Health Examination Survey (INSEF 2015). Obes Res Clin Pract. 2018 Jan - Feb;12(1):40-50. doi:  0.1016/j.orcp.2017.08.002. Epub 2017 Sep 13. PubMed PMID: 28916268..

Antunes L, Silva SP, Marques J, Nunes B, Antunes S. The effect of extreme cold temperatures on the risk of death in the two major Portuguese cities. Int J Biometeorol. 2016 Jun 18. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 27318999.

Kissling E, Nunes B, Robertson C, Valenciano M, Reuss A, Larrauri A, Cohen JM, Oroszi B, Rizzo C, Machado A, Pitigoi D, Domegan L, Paradowska-Stankiewicz I, Buchholz U, Gherasim A, Daviaud I, Horváth JK, Bella A, Lupulescu E, O Donnell J, Korczyńska M, Moren A; I-MOVE case–control study team. I-MOVE multicentre case-control study 2010/11 to 2014/15: Is there within-season waning of influenza type/subtype vaccine effectiveness with increasing time since vaccination? EuroSurveill. 2016 Apr 21;21(16). doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2016.21.16.30201. PubMed PMID: 27124420.

Lupsa IR, Nunes B, Ligocka D, Gurzau AE, Jakubowski M, Casteleyn L, Aerts D, Biot P, Den Hond E, Castaño A, Esteban M, Kolossa-Gehring M, Fiddicke U, Knudsen LE, Schoeters G, Reis MF. Urinary cotinine levels and environmental tobacco smoke in mothers and children of Romania, Portugal and Poland within the European human biomonitoring pilot study. Environ Res. 2015 Aug;141:106-17. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2015.03.018. Epub 2015 Apr 1. PubMed PMID: 25841796

Nunes B, Machado A, Guiomar R, Pechirra P, Conde P, Cristovão P, Falcão I. Estimates of 2012/13 influenza vaccine effectiveness using the case test-negative control design with different influenza negative control groups. Vaccine. 2014 Jul 31;32(35):4443-9. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.06.053. Epub 2014 Jun 21. PubMed PMID: 24962756.

Nunes B, Natário I, Lucília Carvalho M. Nowcasting influenza epidemics using non-homogeneous hidden Markov models. Stat Med. 2012 Nov 5. doi: 10.1002/sim.5670. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23124850.

For all publications see the Orcid link.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6230-7209

Expert on behalf of the National Health Institute Dr. Ricardo Jorge, of the Technical Vaccination Commission;

Member of the Steering and Scientific Committee of the European project I-MOVE + “Integrated Monitoring of Vaccines Effects in Europe” http://www.i-moveplus.eu/

Operational contact point for the epidemiology of the European Influenza Surveillance Network between 2009 and 2014.

Member of the European mortality surveillance network EuroMOMO: European Monitoring Mortality for Public Health Action. http://www.euromomo.eu/

Member of the Task Force for the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in Vila Franca de Xira in October-November 2014.

Expert group on epidemic modeling and nowcasting for ECDC in the context of the Pandemic threat and during Pandemic (H1N1)2009. (2008-2009)

INSA representative on the “Working Party on Accidents and Injuries” - European Commission, DGSANCO.