GW Awarded $3.69 Million to Lead NIH Funded Multi Institutional Climate and Health Developmental Center

The George Washington University was awarded a $3.69 million grant to create a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)-funded environmental health center of excellence. The Research and Engagement for Action in Climate and Health (REACH) Center aims to bridge big data with climate solutions that advance health and environmental justice. To achieve this, the REACH Center will cultivate a diverse and multi-disciplinary research enterprise that generates new knowledge and accelerates research translation into health-protective and equitable climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This new effort will be directed by Susan Anenberg, professor and chair of environmental and occupational health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH),and co-directed by Gaige Kerr, assistant research professor of environmental and occupational health at Milken Institute SPH.

The center will form a multi-institutional partnership among GW, George Mason University, Howard University and the Environmental Defense Fund. This ground-breaking partnership leverages these institutions' location in the national capital region, providing unique opportunities to collaborate with local and federal government scientists and policymakers as well as civil society organizations engaged in climate and health policy development.

The center will catalyze collaborations among investigators and governmental and non-governmental stakeholders to understand the complex interactions between climate and health and design approaches for protecting public health under future climate change.

"I want to congratulate Dr. Susan Anenberg and her dedicated team on receiving this prestigious NIH award," Milken Institute SPH Dean Lynn R. Goldman said. "The REACH Center represents a significant step forward in our mission to address the intersection of climate and health, surely one of the most significant public health challenges of our time.

"This collaborative effort will enable us to develop innovative solutions that promote health equity and environmental justice for all communities" Goldman said. "It not only addresses the science of climate change and health but also creates a strong collaboration that will empower communities to advance health and environmental justice."

The center will achieve its mission through administrative, developmental, community engagement and exposure assessment cores. The developmental core, led by Robert Orttung, research professor of international affairs and director of the sustainability research institute, will foster new research through pilot awards, student fellowships, educational and networking opportunities and promoting interactions between investigators and governmental and non-governmental partners with the aim of building collaborations across researchers from different disciplines. The community engagement core will create a bridge between the center's academic research and communities who are driving health-protective and equitable climate solutions forward. The exposure assessment core will make geospatial climate and environmental data more accessible, interoperable and interpretable for climate and health researchers.

The center will initially support two research projects. The first, evaluating the potential health and environmental justice benefits of congestion pricing in Washington, D.C., will be co-directed by Kelvin Fong, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at Milken Institute SPH, and will engage Rachel Clark, policy director for the Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness, and Zhengtian Xu, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (GW Engineering). The second project will assess health risks for end-stage renal disease patients adversely impacted by climate change. It will be directed by Katie Applebaum, associate professor of environmental and occupational health at Milken Institute SPH, and will engage Pramita Bagchi, assistant professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at Milken Institute SPH, and Dominic Raj, professor of medicine in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS).

"Climate change affects the health and well-being of people through many pathways, including exposure to extreme temperatures, storms and flooding, wildfires, vector-borne disease, and food-borne illness," Anenberg said. "The REACH Center will enable researchers to more easily access large climate and environmental datasets, ultimately leading to actionable information that can reduce health risks."

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