ISPH researchers awarded NIH grant to study impacts of climate change on disease transmission

The Intramural Targeted Climate Change & Health (ITCCH) program has awarded a two-year, $185,042 grant to CUNY ISPH Investigators Nash Rochman and Elizabeth Kelvin and colleagues to support work to improve access to historical and forecasted climate data to better understand the impacts of climate change on infectious disease transmission.

The multidisciplinary team of researchers from the CUNY ISPH and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will build a website to house historical and forecasted climate data including global temperature measurements, arthropod vector range, and population density to facilitate the incorporation of these global change variables into epidemiological modeling and surveillance.

Incorporating climate and human migration data into models for viral transmission and evolution, the team aims to establish improved estimates for the global population at risk of vector-borne viral infection which may in turn motivate policy.

The ITCCH funding program is a $2.1 million collaboration between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the NIH Office of Intramural Research.

About the CUNY SPH
The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) is committed to promoting and sustaining healthier populations in New York City and around the world through excellence in education, research, and service in public health and by advocating for sound policy and practice to advance social justice and improve health outcomes for all. sph.cuny.edu.

About the CUNY ISPH
The CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health (ISPH) was founded on the notion that substantial improvements in population health can be efficiently achieved through better implementation of existing strategies, policies, and interventions across multiple sectors. With that in mind, we study how to translate and scale up evidence-based interventions and policies within clinical and community settings in order to improve population health and reduce health disparities. cunyisph.org