loading page

AGU Report to NSF on Accelerating Research and Impacts in GeoHealth
  • +5
  • R. Brooks Hanson,
  • Susan Anenberg,
  • Ben Zaitchik,
  • Gordon Grant,
  • Gabriel Filippelli,
  • Laura Lyon,
  • Raj Pandya,
  • Mark Shimamoto
R. Brooks Hanson
AGU
Author Profile
Susan Anenberg
George Washington University
Author Profile
Ben Zaitchik
Johns Hopkins University
Author Profile
Gordon Grant
Oregon State University
Author Profile
Gabriel Filippelli
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Author Profile
Laura Lyon
American Geophysical Union
Author Profile
Raj Pandya
American Geophysical Union
Author Profile
Mark Shimamoto
American Geophysical Union
Author Profile

Abstract

GeoHealth represents the critical intersection between the Earth and environmental sciences, and agricultural and health sciences. Following a specific request from the National Science Foundation (NSF) this report provides a series of recommendations aimed at empowering research, building fundamental workforce capacity, and improving communication around GeoHealth to the public and policy makers. This development is critical as a robust GeoHealth research enterprise is essential to global health, human and ecosystem well-being, and sustainability. The AGU community along with those from several allied societies provided the recommendations in this report; these were developed for a detailed survey and two workshops. The survey and other input revealed several broad challenges and needs, including highly siloed funding and support for researchers across institutions and societies, the inability to access or combine key datasets, and in particular the lack of clear career trajectories and support. The recommendations consist of: (i) six programmatic areas where significant attention to building a GeoHealth research enterprise is needed; (ii) approaches and concepts for four specific challenges in GeoHealth for which significant results could be enabled rapidly, within 2-3 years; (iii) ideas for developing an education/career path and for outreach; (iv) larger “moonshot” ideas that might yield very significant impacts over ca. 10 years. All of these have several common elements and themes: they leverage many directorates within NSF, including all within the GEO division; can build off of existing initiatives; are best developed through partnerships with other agencies and communities; and rely on open and FAIR data sets. Although the focus of these recommendations is toward and for the NSF, the suggestions are more general and hopefully will be considered by other funding agencies and other parts of the research enterprise in the U.S. and internationally.