Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Addressing Extreme Weather Related Diarrheal Disease Risks in the Asia Pacific Region

该奖项为参与由55个国家通过贝尔蒙特论坛发起的全球变化研究项目的美国研究人员提供支持。贝尔蒙特论坛是一个研究资助组织的联盟，致力于支持跨学科方法来应对全球环境变化的挑战和机遇。它的目的是通过协调和调动国际资源，加速提供最迫切需要的国际研究，以消除可持续发展的关键障碍。每个伙伴国在一个联盟中为它们的研究人员提供资金，以减轻对跨越国际边界的资金的需求。这种方法有助于有效利用国家资源，支持对全球相关主题的优秀研究，最好通过多国方法解决，同时认识到全球挑战需要全球解决方案。伙伴机构在这一合作研究行动中共同努力，提供了支持，以培养由自然（包括气候）、卫生和社会科学家以及来自全球各地的利益攸关方组成的全球跨学科研究团队，以增进对气候、环境和健康途径的了解，从而保护和促进健康。这些项目将为气候变化和变异对健康的影响提供重要的新认识；1)食物的质量/数量，2)长期暴露于热量和湿度的增加/变化，3)一系列传染病的分布和发病率的变化以及新病原体的出现。该奖项为美国研究人员在至少三个参与国的合作伙伴组成的联盟中合作提供支持，以增加我们对气候、环境和健康之间复杂联系和途径的认识，帮助解决社会面临的复杂挑战。该项目力求发展一种多学科方法来发展传染病早期预警系统。由于极端天气事件的频率、持续时间和强度都在增加，各国，特别是亚太区域的国家，腹泻病发病率和死亡率都在上升，仅南亚每年就有87.3万多人死亡。应对传染病威胁的早期预警系统在公共卫生界引起了相当大的兴趣，因为这种方法与疾病预防原则（公共卫生的核心基础）产生共鸣。公共卫生从业人员需要及时建立预警系统，以提供足够的时间来准备和应对预计的情况。基于天气的警报太短，公共卫生专业人员和社区无法为威胁制定计划；而且基于气候预测的警告还太遥远；因此，本项目将侧重于季节性到次季节性的时间尺度。该项目将与来自亚太地区（包括台湾、印度、中国、越南、尼泊尔、孟加拉国和印度尼西亚）的研究人员、非政府组织政府和社区组织合作，对与极端天气事件相关的腹泻疾病风险进行比较分析。目标是开发可在整个亚太地区实施的可转移的季节性到分季节性预警系统，以减少与极端天气有关的腹泻疾病负担并提高社区抵御能力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 55-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum. The Belmont Forum is a consortium of research funding organizations focused on support for transdisciplinary approaches to global environmental change challenges and opportunities. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.Working together in this Collaborative Research Action, the partner agencies have provided support to foster global transdisciplinary research teams of natural (including climate), health and social scientists and stakeholders from across the globe to improve understanding of climate, environment and health pathways to protect and promote health. The projects will provide crucial new understanding into the health implications arising from the impacts of climate change and variability on; 1) the quality/quantity of food, 2) chronic exposure to increases/changes in heat and humidity and 3) changes in the distribution and incidence of a range of infectious diseases and emergence of novel pathogens. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries to increase our knowledge of the complex linkages and pathways between the climate, environment and health to help solve complex challenges that face societies. The project seeks to develop a multidisciplinary approach to developing early warning systems for infectious diseases. As extreme weather events are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity, countries especially in the Asia Pacific Region experience elevated rates of diarrheal disease morbidity and mortality, with more than 873,000 deaths/year reported in South Asia alone. Early warning systems to address infectious disease threats are of considerable interest within the public health community as this approach resonates with the principle of disease prevention, a core underpinning of public health. Public health practitioners require early warning systems on time scales needed to provide adequate time to prepare for and respond to projected conditions. Weather-based warnings are too short for public health professionals and communities to plan for the threats; and climate projection-based warnings are too distant in the future; therefore, this project will focus on seasonal to sub-seasonal time scales. The project will engage with researchers, NGO’s governmental, and community organizations from the Asia Pacific Region, including Taiwan, India, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Indonesia to undertake comparative analyses of diarrheal disease risk associated with extreme weather events. The goal is to develop a transferable, seasonal to sub-seasonal early warning system that can be implemented across the Asia Pacific Region to reduce extreme weather-related diarrheal disease burdens and improve community resilience.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.