Climate Change & Health

Climate Change and Health was identified as a common research priority with CNRS at strategic meetings held in Paris in September 2022 and Washington D.C. in October 2023. On the UofA side, discussions were led by UA Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, Dr. Michael Dake, who has since dedicated seed funding to jump start this initiative at the UofA. Three strategic areas have been identified for the investigation of interactions between climate change and health:

• air/water/soil pollution (chemical, physical, biological)
• extreme heat
• infectious diseases

and the social, behavioral, and digital impacts and responses involved. Transverse research addresses questions of environmental justice and health equity and seeks community engagement for assessment, mitigation, and adaptation.

These topics bring together many colleges across the university: 

• Public Health (e.g. Department of Community, Environment and Policy, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics)
• Medicine (e.g. Departments of Medicine, Pharmacology, Immunobiology, Cellular and Molecular Medicine)
• Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences (e.g. Department of Environmental Science, School of Plant Sciences, Department of Entomology)
• Science (e.g. Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Mathematics)
• Social and Behavioral Sciences (e.g. School of Geography, Development and Environment, School of Sociology, School of Government and Public Policy, School of Human Ecology)
• Engineering (e.g. Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Biosystems Engineering)
• Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture
• Humanities
• Fine Arts
• Cooperative Extension

Multiple cross-department and cross-college centers and institutes are involved:

• Arizona Institute for Resilience, including WEST (Water & Energy Sustainable Technology Center)
• Southwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health
• Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center
• Superfund Research Center
• Southwest Center (Borderlands Water and Food Security Program)
• Cancer Center
• Center for Innovation in Brain Science
• Environment, Exposure Science & Risk Assessment Center
• Epidemiology Program
• AEGIS
• Valley Fever Center for Excellence
• One Health Research Initiative
• Heat Resilience Initiative
• Architecture - Health and the Built Environment Program

Additional information about the three Climate Change and Health strategic areas are coming soon.