PNNL

Abstract

Climate change amplifies many threats to human health. Despite advances in understanding climate change dynamics and impacts, there remains a critical gap in translating scientific knowledge into equitable, and community-driven health interventions. The inaugural One Earth, One Health workshop sought to explore this gap through human centered design exercises involving interdisciplinary researchers from climate and earth sciences, engineering, epidemiology, microbiology, and environmental health. Although participants did not co-develop solutions with affected communities, they used stakeholder role-playing to guide ideation and lay groundwork for actionable plans. Through these methods, participants identified community needs and proposed prototype solutions to alleviate health threats exacerbated by global environmental change without getting into contentious debate about climate change. Participants focused on three examples—infectious disease, extreme weather, and air quality—while recognizing these do not encompass all health threats. Key solutions included advanced strategies for predicting infectious disease outbreaks, inclusive communication and infrastructure needs for responding to extreme weather events, and integrated platforms visualizing air quality trends to make tailored public health recommendations. The workshop highlighted opportunities such as leveraging artificial intelligence and real-time epidemiological surveillance to protect communities, but also noted barriers including data quality, technological redundancy, and limitations. Additionally, participants emphasized the need for interdisciplinary teams capable of collaborating across sectors, breaking down silos and addressing gaps in training and education. The suite of proposed strategies highlights the importance of cross-sector collaboration, interdisciplinary training, and direct community involvement in co-creating content-specific, inclusive responses for mitigating health threats amplified by global environmental change.