USGCRP co-led an international group of funders and implementers in initiating development of a collaborative research action.

The Belmont Forum is an international partnership between national research funding agencies and international science organizations focused on advancing transdisciplinary global change science and accelerating its application. Its Collaborative Research Actions (CRAs) combine natural science, social science, and stakeholder perspectives to produce knowledge for understanding and responding to global environmental change. In November 2017, the Belmont Forum approved a proposed CRA focused on the linkages among climate, environment, and health. An international steering group, co-led by representatives from USGCRP member agencies (including NOAA, NIH, and NSF), was formed to develop the initial proposal into a final CRA and to organize a scoping workshop, hosted by USGCRP in April 2018. USGCRP’s engagement with the Belmont Forum is coordinated through the International Activities Interagency Working Group (IAIWG). The Program’s inputs into the scoping process for the Climate, Environment, and Health CRA took place through an interagency consultative process managed by the Interagency Cross-cutting Group on Climate Change and Human Health (CCHHG).

The scoping workshop brought together a diverse group of international funding organizations and Federal agencies including NIH, NOAA, NSF, USGS, USDA, NASA, and USAID, with the goal of developing a shared set of funding priorities for the Climate, Environment, and Health CRA. Steering group discussions and the scoping workshop identified a number of interconnected research priorities that reflect a “systems” approach, including climate change and health; disasters, extreme weather, and climate events; heat and health; oceans and health; and climate-sensitive infectious diseases and land use change. Following input and deliberations at the workshop, the steering committee developed a roadmap for a multi-year international call for proposals to begin in 2019. This CRA aims to fund research that will advance understanding of risks and vulnerabilities across multiple time scales; develop robust modeling, prediction, and early warning systems for climate-related health threats; and provide information useful to decision makers.