C2H2 RCN: oneearth onehealth: an ecosystem for human-centered climate solutions

This $500,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) will establish the "ONE-EARTH ONE-HEALTH: AN ECOSYSTEM FOR HUMAN-CENTERED CLIMATE SOLUTIONS" Research Coordination Network. The network aims to advance a new "geohealth" science that studies the interconnections between Earth processes and human health, with the goal of developing human-centered, implementable solutions to mitigate the impacts of climate change on public health. Key activities include training participants in team science and community engagement, synthesizing knowledge on climate-health linkages, designing solution implementation strategies, and creating communication and educational resources. The 5-year award, effective September 1, 2024, will involve subawards to support this collaborative, cross-disciplinary effort to address serious climate-driven health issues through an integrated, holistic approach.

Abstract

This research coordination network will establish a framework for innovative human-centered solutions and implementation strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change on human health. The network will advance a new science, called geohealth, that has been established by a community of researchers who study the interconnections between earth processes and human health. Goals of these activities range from studying climate change impacts on human health to finding science-based and human-centered implementable solutions. The network provides participants with training and skills to CO-design, between geoscientists and medical/health professionals, human-centered solutions that cross the boundaries of traditional medical and non-medical scientific disciplines. Network participants will collaborate to combine their knowledge, expertise, tools, and data to address, in a holistic manner, a panoply of serious climate-driven health impacts that take into account that fact that the earth system is not compartmentalized but where all components are inextricably intertwined. Broader impacts of the work include training members in community engagement and leadership as well as in team science and developing skills to effectively interact with the public and with decision and policy makers seeking science-based input to improve public health and well being that is grounded in fact. The one-earth one-health research coordination network, which involves participants across the geosciences and health professions, is based on the foundation that all earth processes directly or indirectly influence human health in the short- and long-term. Goals are to create human-centered, implementable solutions that are science-based and increase recognition of the medical profession of the importance of working with and engaging geoscientists who study the environment and the environmental triggers that cause serious human health conditions. Such a collaboration is essential if a holistic, preventive approach to solving serious health issues is to be achieved. Because geoscientists are generally trained to solve problems that involve long time-scales and medical professionals undergo almost exclusively patient-centric training, the two fields - both of which are essential for a complete understanding of both the environmental trigger and its manifestation in the human body, have not worked closely with each other. This research network was created to change that. As the climate changes, our adaptation to IT and solutions devised to prevent or mitigate or otherwise protect human health require geoscientists be trained, work with, and communicate effectively to health scientists, policymakers, and the public. The one-earth one-health research network will devise an online curriculum on team science, provide a platform for the synthesis of knowledge on climate change impacts on human health, work to develop human-centered solutions to climate-driven climate health issues, design solution implementation strategies, create communication strategies, and establish geohealth curriculum that can be used as part of the university curriculum in geoscience. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are planned for this award.