NRT: One Health and the Environment (OH&E): Convergence of Social and Biological Sciences

全球环境和土地利用的变化、人口老龄化以及动物、植物和人的传染病(如莱姆病、寨卡病毒、禽流感、柑橘绿化病)的日益流行突出了培训专业人员的必要性，这种方法研究人类、动物、植物和环境健康的交叉领域的疾病动力学。在人类新出现的传染病中，多达60%起源于动物；例如，2009年有近30万人死于猪流感。一种健康疾病的成本很高；在12年的时间里，美国爆发的六种传染病的经济负担总计超过800亿美元。疾病的易感性和传播很大程度上受到社会因素的影响(例如，户外工作、有限的医疗保健机会)。在不断变化的土地利用和气候模式下解决人类、动物、植物和环境健康之间的复杂联系，将促进基础科学的发展，同时也为一个健康问题产生创新的解决方案。这项授予缅因州大学的国家科学基金会研究培训(NRT)奖将与跨学科的科学家团队合作，共同培养研究生，解决这些环境和健康问题。该项目预计将培训71(71)名MS和博士生，其中包括21(21)名资助的受训者，他们来自不同的STEM领域，包括经济学、生物学和森林资源。NRT项目将鼓励受训人员在从海洋到陆地、从农村到城市以及从经济到文化的各种系统中进行跨学科的环境One Health研究。具体研究主题包括候鸟病原体的传播和进化、猎禽和家禽之间疾病蔓延的驱动因素、病媒传播疾病的生态和进化，以及气候和/或土地利用做法对病媒传播和饮用水质量的影响。通过与学术界以外的实习伙伴的密切互动，学员将扩大他们的范围，不仅考虑潜在的科学，而且考虑为One Health问题开发解决方案的管理和政策挑战。跨学科交流培训将使受训者能够与不同的科学界、利益攸关方、公民科学家和公众接触。培训旨在增加妇女、第一代学生、退伍军人、残疾学生和其他传统上代表性不足的群体的参与。该项目将开发新的研究生学位课程和One Health的集中领域，以及与其他机构共享的课程创新，以帮助它们开发类似的跨学科课程。NSF研究培训(NRT)计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革意义的STEM研究生教育培训模式。该计划致力于通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致的综合实习生模式，在高度优先的跨学科或趋同研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Global environmental and land-use changes, aging human populations, and the increasing prevalence of infectious diseases of animals, plants and people (e.g., Lyme disease, Zika virus, bird flu, citrus greening disease) highlight the need for training professionals in an interdisciplinary "One Health" approach that studies disease dynamics at the intersection of human, animal, plant, and environmental health. As much as 60% of the emerging infectious diseases in humans have originated in animals; for example, almost 300,000 people died of swine flu in 2009. One Health diseases are costly; over a 12-year period, the economic burden of six infectious disease outbreaks in the U.S. totaled over $80 billion. Disease susceptibility and transmission is strongly affected by social factors (e.g., outdoor employment, limited healthcare access). Addressing the complex connections among human, animal, plant, and environmental health under changing land use and climate patterns will advance the basic science while also generating innovative solutions to One Health problems. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Maine will address these environmental One Health issues, with transdisciplinary teams of scientists working together to train graduate students. The project anticipates training seventy-one (71) MS and PhD students, including twenty-one (21) funded trainees, from a variety of STEM fields including Economics, Biology and Forest Resources. The NRT project will encourage interdisciplinary environmental One Health research by trainees in a diverse range of systems, from marine to terrestrial, rural to urban, and economic to cultural. Specific research topics include migratory bird pathogen transmission and evolution, drivers of disease spillover between game birds and domestic poultry, the ecology and evolution of vector-borne diseases, and climate and/or land-use practice impacts on the spread of disease vectors and drinking water quality. Through close interactions with internship partners outside of academia, the trainees will expand their boundaries to consider not just the underlying science, but also the management and policy challenges in developing solutions to One Health problems. Training in cross-disciplinary communication will enable trainees to engage with diverse scientific communities, stakeholders, citizen scientists, and the public. The traineeship is designed to increase the participation of women, first-generation students, veterans, students with disabilities and other traditionally underrepresented groups. The project will develop new graduate degree programs and concentration areas in One Health as well as curricular innovations to be shared with other institutions to help them develop similar interdisciplinary programs. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.