CAREER:Assessing impacts of enhanced climatic variability and extreme natural events on environmental sustainability of water in fostering disease resilient public health

该项目旨在了解极端自然事件和气候变化加剧对水媒病原体传播的影响。空间和时间卫星数据将广泛用于建立预测致病性霍乱细菌分布的模型。总体科学目标是确定在气候变化加剧与极端自然事件同时发生的地区发生疾病暴发的风险。具体的教育和推广目标包括：(i)在西弗吉尼亚大学内开发环境可持续性课程；（ii）积极招募和培训少数民族和代表性不足群体的学生进行研究；（iii）为初高中学生开发环境可视化编程课程。这项研究的目的是提供一个可能适用于全球范围的定量基线框架，以评估病原体在环境和人群中的发生和传播。其目的是帮助决策者、援助组织和政府卫生机构制定减轻疾病战略。通过这项研究开发的计算基础设施将提供给对公共卫生、气候建模和水文气候学感兴趣的广泛学生。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 CAREER project seeks to understand impacts of extreme natural events and increased climatic variability on the spread of water-borne pathogens. Spatial and temporal satellite data will be used extensively to create models that predict the distribution of pathogenic cholera bacteria. The overall scientific objective is to determine risk of disease outbreaks in regions where increased climatic variability coincides with extreme natural events. Specific educational and outreach objectives include: (i) developing an environmental sustainability curriculum within West Virginia University; (ii) actively recruiting and training minority and underrepresented group students in research; (iii) developing an environmental visualization programming curriculum for middle/high school students.The research is targeted to provide a quantitative baseline framework, potentially applicable on global scales, to assess occurrence and spread of pathogens in the environment and human population. The intent is to aid preparation of disease mitigation strategies by policymakers, aid organizations, and governmental health agencies. The computational infrastructure developed through this research will be made available to a wide array of students who have interest in public health, climate modeling, and hydroclimatology.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.