September 23, 2024 — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced last week the award of a P20 grant to fund a new Center based at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, named the Center for Climate: Equitable and Accessible Research-based Testing for Health (C-EARTH). The Principal Investigators on the grant are Dr. Kari Nadeau, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health and John Rock Professor of Climate and Population Studies; Dr. Christopher Golden, Associate Professor of Nutrition and Planetary Health; and Dr. Mary Rice, newly-appointed Director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) and Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Respiratory Health. The aim of this new center is to bring sustainable climate solutions to heat stressed, low-income communities around the globe.
Climate change presents immense challenges to communities, from urban neighborhoods to rural coastal communities, as rising temperatures affect not only the health of people, but also present the need for new infrastructure to protect communities from rising waters, and help preserve vulnerable industries, such as fishing. The award will fund a three-year pilot project to create the Center and implement community-based cooling solutions in three low-income communities in Boston, Madagascar, and South Africa.
The C-EARTH project involves collaboration across departments at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, including the Departments of Environmental Health, Nutrition, and Social and Behavioral Sciences, as well as with Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). In addition to this cross-department work, the Center aims to prioritize collaboration with communities directly, to hear their specific needs and respond through working together to develop solutions on the ground.
“It is a pleasure and privilege to work with the communities, the NIH, and the investigators on this ‘one of a kind’ NIH award for the Harvard Chan School,” said Nadeau. “This Center brings together communities and multidisciplinary researchers around the world to test solutions for the direct and indirect effects of climate change, including reducing heat-related illness and improving nutrition in food for the most impacted communities. I am grateful for the funding for all of us, and I am excited about the potential for deep and wide impact through collaborative, team science between public communities, Harvard Chan School, HMS, and BIDMC.”
“Having spent the past 25 years working in Madagascar, I have been able to witness the impacts of climate and environmental change on food systems and human health,” said Golden. “Much of my team’s work has focused on documenting these impacts, and I am so excited to begin working on solutions. Joining forces with such great collaborators across our university campus will help us to make lasting solutions in the places that need it most.”
“Community engagement is critical to developing and testing climate and health interventions that work for the people who need them most,” said Rice. “Our multi-disciplinary implementation, solutions, and evaluation core will help determine which interventions are most effective and work with people on the ground in Boston, Madagascar, and South Africa to deliver community-driven solutions.”
The award is part of a new NIH initiative to support the development of new Climate Change and Health Research Centers (CCHRCs), emphasizing transdisciplinary research to examine the impacts of climate change on health and to develop action-oriented solutions to protect the health of individuals, communities, and nations from the hazards posed by climate change.
C-EARTH will interact with the CAFE Research Coordinating Center led by Francesca Dominici, Greg Wellenius, and Amruta Nori-Sarma, which is NIH funded as part of this new initiative last year as a collaboration between Boston University School of Public Health and Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
About the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
For more than 100 years, the Department of Enviromental Health has advanced the fields of environmental and occupational health through hands-on training and translating evidence-based research into policy and practice. We work to guide public discourse with national and international leaders, on the most pressing environmental health challenges in the twenty-first century. To learn more about the department, please visit: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/environmental-health/
Research reported in this publication was supported by the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P20TW013028. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
