Climate change is already shifting environmental exposures, disease risks, and adversely influencing human health and well-being. Local institutions must anticipate and understand how to adapt to emerging health challenges. However, the speed of climate change is outpacing society’s ability to design and evaluate effective adaptations. To help public health departments anticipate and successfully adapt to climate change, I co-wrote the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Building Resilience Against Climate Effects Framework (President’s Climate Action Plan 2013). This framework guides the activities of municipal and tribal health departments. Expanding on this framework, my research agenda: i) builds the evidence base to anticipate and adapt to global environmental change, ii) develop innovative study designs, iii) evaluate interventions to increase community resilience.

My group’s first research theme expands society’s knowledge of which diseases are sensitive to environmental conditions. Scholars are welcome to propose innovative research examining the understudied environmental dimensions of environmental health exposures, disasters, infectious diseases, and/or mental health outcomes. Our second research theme evaluates interventions to increase community resilience. I oversaw the CDC funded Building Resilience Against Climate Effects Program for the state of Florida. We work with county health departments and local jurisdictions to implement and evaluate public health interventions. Since many health departments do not have the capacity and/or training to evaluate existing programs, we developed a series of webinars and cooperative agreements to build local evaluation capacity. There are multiple projects scholars could build upon related to extreme heat (air conditioning availability and energy poverty, heat warning systems), earth observations, and climate adaptations. Prospective scholars are also welcome to propose complementary applied research ideas.