Catalyzing “Missing Link” Research on the Health Impacts of Climate Change
There remain key evidence gaps about the pathways through which climate change shapes physical and mental health across the lifespan. Data are also limited regarding climate solutions that maximize both human health and environmental benefits. Crucially, this research must address critical factors that shape the health impacts of – and necessary responses to – climate change, including socioeconomic factors such as race/ethnicity and income and systemic injustices like structural and environmental racism.
Our Center for Climate, Health and Equity is launching a transformational climate, health, and equity research program that facilitates collaborative, cross-discipline studies to strategically address knowledge gaps and that drives this evidence into action through our Policy pillar.
- We are convening a community of faculty, fellows and students and creating the systems and funding mechanisms needed to support and refine their research.
- We are expanding our research portfolios to answer critical climate-health research questions with policy implications, including through cross-UC collaborations. Some of the Center’s research streams will include:
- The profound and under-researched psychosocial effects of the climate crisis.
- The intersection of food systems, climate change, and health.
- The commercial determinants of the climate and health crisis.
- The nexus of extreme wildfire events, air quality, and respiratory health in California.
- The coalescence of the wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic on child and adult mental and physical health in California.