This joint announcement is intended to support the formation of multidisciplinary teams working in close collaboration on integrated projects to illuminate pathways by which climate may affect human health, and which explore the potential for applying climate forecast information in the public health arena.
Climate refers to climate variability across time scales.
Understanding how short-term climate variability affects human health may improve our knowledge of potential consequences of, and adaptation to, longer term changes in the climate system. The overarching goal of this announcement is to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of new approaches or field studies that investigate or validate well-formed hypotheses or models of climate variability and health interactions. This announcement is offered as part of an interagency effort to build an integrated climate and health community. Proposed research submitted under this announcement is encouraged to build on existing research activities, programs, research sites and facilities, or data sets. Research teams should include, at a minimum, one investigator each from the public health or medical response, ecology, and climate communities working in close collaboration on an integrated project.