American Meteorological Society 9Th Session on Environment and Health
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American Meteorological Society 98th Annual Meeting 9th Session on Environment and Health AMS Board on Environment and Health 7-11 January 2018 Austin, TX Session Page Innovations in Climate and Health Education 3 John Balbus and Kim Knowlton Climate Change and Health 4 Kristie Ebi Vectorborne Diseases: From Basic Research to Early Warning Systems 5 Mary Hayden Advances in Modeling and Observational Approaches for Heat Health 6 Jenni Vanos and Sarah Giltz Partnerships to Enhance Public Health Communications by Broadcast Meteorologists 7 Wendy Marie Thomas and Kristie Ebi NASA Earth Observation Systems and Applications for Health and Air Quality Models 8 and Decisions Sue Estes and John Haynes Assessment of Air Pollution Exposure Vulnerability and Health 10 Karin Ardon-Dryer and Jenni Vanos Demystifying Public-Private Partnerships for Predictions in Public Health 11 Juli Trtanj Indoor Heat Exposure: Measurements, Impacts, and Solutions 12 Mary Wright and Augusta Williams Health Early Warning Systems: Use of Novel Technologies and Associated Costs, 13 Benefits and Best Practices Jeremy Hess and Gerald Creager Informing Heat-Health Practitioners to Reduce Risks through Impact-Based Decisions 14 Support Hunter Jones and Shubhayu Saha 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The American Meteorological Society’s Board on Environment and Health advanced the understanding of Earth's environmental influences on human health. During our 9th Session on Environment and Health, held at the 98th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Austin, TX, we hosted 11 sessions about these influences. Many themes were present throughout the conference, including education, early warning systems, modeling, observations, communication, decision making, vulnerability, partnerships, impacts, and solutions, all through the lens of understanding and managing environmental influences on human health. Most sessions had higher levels of audience attendance than in recent years. Further, the Board’s twitter account earned over 35,000 impressions and gained approximately 50 new followers during the week. Sessions covered: • A variety of efforts, initiatives, and materials available to improve understanding of the interactions between weather extremes, climate variability, climate change, and health across multiple levels of education and health professional training. • An exploration of issues pertaining to understanding, projecting, and managing climate- sensitive health outcomes. • The interactions among meteorology and vector-borne disease ecology and epidemiology and the nexus of physical, social, and biological factors that influence vector-borne disease transmission. • Current research on various methods to model extreme heat across variable space and time, with applications to health and how to build resilience into climate information systems and decision making. • Increasing the effectiveness of communications about the health impacts of weather and climate events, highlighting new research that supports broadcast media efforts to communicate the individual and community impacts of climate-related events. • The unique vantage point that remote sensing satellites provide for filling the gaps of environmental, spatial, and temporal data for tracking disease. • The connections of air pollution with weather and how air pollution impacts human health at various scales. • A continuing need for more indoor data collection, the connection between indoor heat exposure and vulnerable populations, and the impacts of indoor heat exposure on populations that are not typically considered vulnerable. • Innovations at the leading edge of heat early warning systems, including the use of novel exposure estimation models to generate more valid and precise exposure estimates over larger areas with longer lead times. • Ways that heat-health practitioners can improve their decision making strategies by utilized impact-based tools and skills to reduce risks of heat-related illness and health outcomes. Wendy Marie Thomas received the AMS Board on Environmental Health award for her critical role in establishing our board and raising awareness about the connections between health and physical sciences across AMS. We look forward to engaging with you next year for out 10th Session on Environment and Health in Phoenix, Arizona! 2 Session: Innovations In Climate And Health Education Co-chairs: John Balbus and Kim Knowlton Overall, this session discussed a variety of efforts, initiatives, and materials available to improve understanding of the interactions between weather extremes, climate variability, climate change, and health. Speakers discussed these efforts across multiple levels of education, including secondary schools, undergraduate and graduate schools, and health professional training. Specifically, the presentations: ● Described how NIEHS has adapted educational materials created for STEM high school students in the US so that they are more appropriate for non-US STEM students, as well as public health and health care professional students in the US and internationally. In all, seven new versions of the original materials, which are entitled “A Student Exploration of the Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States” have been created and are being reviewed presently. One version, focused just on vector borne diseases, is designed to accompany the new GLOBE Mosquito Mapper activity. (John Balbus, NIEHS) ● Detailed how the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) program operates in 6 GLOBE regions that include 119 countries. There are roughly 10 current measurement campaigns in which students collect and analyze earth and atmospheric observations they make and share with NASA, including soil moisture, water and air temperature, clouds, and plant phenology. All of these campaigns have linkages to health impacts. The new Mosquito Mapper is part of GLOBE observer, which is a global citizen science campaign. (Julie Malmberg, GLOBE) ● Explained how the Global Consortium for Climate and Health Education has gathered 134 members in 17 countries around the world in the past year to share best practices for climate and health education at the undergraduate, graduate and professional school levels. The initial response to join has been greatest among schools of public health, and the Consortium intends to do more concerted outreach to schools of medicine and nursing as well as more outreach to the Global South in the coming year. The Consortium is also focusing on producing model competencies and learning objectives for climate and health curricula. (Kim Knowlton, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health) ● Described efforts to teach climate data interpretation to health professionals in Africa. A focus now is on providing near-term, sub-seasonal forecasts for harmful heat and for precipitation to assist health professionals working on heat-health interactions and climate-sensitive infectious diseases like malaria and meningitis. NOAA has created a prototype web “dashboard” to share health-related near-term climate forecasts with health professionals and is seeking engagement with the health community in Africa and globally to assist with the development of these types of information resources. (Wassila Thiaw, NOAA) 3 Session: Climate Change and Health Chair: Kristie L. Ebi Overall, this session explored issues pertaining to understanding, projecting, and managing climate-sensitive health outcomes. Specifically, the presentations provided: ● A comprehensive review of the health risks of projected climate change of 1.5° and 2°C above preindustrial highlighted that mortality risks associated with high ambient temperatures, exposure to ground level ozone, and undernutrition will increase with greater degrees of warming. The extent to which greater degrees of warming could alter mortality associated with vectorborne diseases varies by disease and region; higher degrees of warming could decrease diseases such as malaria in some regions that become too hot and dry for the mosquito vectors. (Kris Ebi, University of Washington) ● Information that dengue is the most common vectorborne disease globally, with about 400 million cases annually. A sophisticated energy balance model of the breeding conditions for the mosquito that carries dengue facilitates the assessment of habitat suitability across varying natural environments and can be used to project how future changes in precipitation, humidity, and radiative effects could affect mosquito population dynamics and thus the burden of dengue with climate change. (Daniel Steinhoff, NCAR) ● A conversation, led by the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s (USGCRP) Climate Change and Human Health Cross-cutting Group (CCHHG), the U.S. is developing a comprehensive Climate and Health Science Plan to identify critical science gaps, including research, data, operational, communication, and adaptation needs to improve the health and well-being of U.S. citizens and communities affected by changing climate conditions. The plan will help align strengths, capacity and funding across federal agencies to protect the health and security of U.S. citizens and interests at home and abroad in a changing climate. (Juli Trtanj, NOAA) 4 Session: Vectorborne Diseases: From Basic Research to Early Warning Systems Chair: Mary Hayden Overall, this session explored the interactions among meteorology and vector-borne disease ecology and epidemiology. Presentations addressed the nexus of physical, social, and biological