Health effects of decarbonization (HEALED): Understanding key determinants for health co-benefits and co-harms

人类健康的共同利益可以激励对气候政策的更有力支持。例如，能源系统脱碳可以通过减少共同排放的空气污染物来产生相当大的健康共同效益。然而，评估短期脱碳战略与健康考虑面临两个关键的分析挑战：（i）一些碳减排战略的意外健康共同危害;例如，大规模生物能源生产可能推高食品价格，导致营养相关的健康共同危害;（ii）未来的深刻不确定性，如社会经济模式，技术成本和市场因素。该项目的目标是：（i）从数量上更好地了解决定脱碳产生的健康结果的规模和分布的关键因素和过程，以及（ii）确定脱碳战略的特征，这些特征最有可能在未来的不确定性下产生稳健的净健康效益。伤害都受到当地技术选择的影响（例如，发电技术和车辆类型）和社会经济因素（例如，收入增长和人口老龄化），健康共同危害进一步取决于跨区域和跨部门的复杂相互作用，如区域间电力、生物燃料和粮食贸易。以美国为重点，研究人员将通过以下方式检验这一假设：（i）通过改进健康驱动因素在州一级综合评估模型中的代表性，制定一个能源-食品-健康综合建模框架（GCAM-USA）并将其与精细分辨率健康影响评估模块连接，（ii）构建一个大规模的脱碳情景集合，以代表社会经济模式、能源技术成本和食品/能源市场格局中的各种未来不确定性，以及（iii）确定在县、州和国家一级决定健康结果的关键因素和过程。通过结合能源系统建模，健康影响评估和决策分析的知识，这种融合的研究目标是提高对低碳能源战略和人类健康之间的非线性相互作用的理解，以及这些相互作用所依赖的市场和自然系统的作用。因此，该项目旨在促进对管理能源，健康和气候等相互关联的社会挑战的复杂系统的定量理解。通过各种学科的融合，它旨在提供关于决定脱碳健康结果的关键互动动态的新见解。此外，通过利用现代计算能力来分析大型情景集合，数据驱动方法旨在量化各种社会经济，技术和市场不确定性在确定健康共同利益或共同危害方面的相对重要性。该项目将为研究和教育目的制作开放源码示范代码和教材。它还将在高度跨学科的环境中培养本科生和博士生。研究结果旨在指导从业者改进决策，以更好地驾驭气候-健康关系。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

Tangible human health co-benefits can motivate stronger support for climate policy. For example, decarbonizing the energy system can produce sizable health co-benefits by reducing co-emitted air pollutants. However, assessing near-term decarbonization strategies with health considerations faces two key analytical challenges: (i) unintended health co-harms from some carbon mitigation strategies; for instance, large-scale bioenergy production can drive up food prices, which leads to nutrition-related health co-harms, and (ii) deep uncertainties about the future, such as socioeconomic patterns, technology costs, and market factors. The objectives of this project are: (i) to improve the quantitative understanding of key factors and processes that determine the magnitude and distribution of health outcomes from decarbonization, and (ii) to identify features of decarbonization strategies that are most likely to yield robust net health benefits given deep future uncertainties.The investigators hypothesize that while health co-benefits and co-harms are both affected by local technology choices (e.g., electricity generation technologies and vehicle types) and socioeconomic factors (e.g., income growth and population aging), the health co-harms are further determined by complex interactions across regions and sectors, such as inter-regional trade of electricity, biofuel, and food. With a focus on the United States, the investigators will test the hypothesis by: (i) developing an integrated energy-food-health modeling framework, by improving the representation of health drivers in a state-level integrated assessment model (GCAM-USA) and connecting it with a fine- resolution health impact assessment module, (ii) constructing a large-scale ensemble of decarbonization scenarios to represent a wide range of future uncertainties in socioeconomic patterns, energy technology costs, and food/energy market setups, and (iii) identifying the key factors and processes that determine health outcomes at the county, state, and national levels. By combining knowledge from energy system modeling, health impact assessment, and decision analysis, this convergent research targets improving understanding of the non-linear interactions between low-carbon energy strategies and human health, as well as the role of the market and natural systems on which these interactions depend. Thus, this project seeks to advance quantitative understanding of the complex systems governing interconnected societal challenges on energy, health, and climate. Through a convergence of various disciplines, it seeks to provide new insights on key interacting dynamics that determine health outcomes from decarbonization. Further, by leveraging modern computational capabilities to analyze a large scenario ensemble, a data-driven approach is intended to enable quantification of the relative importance of various socioeconomic, technological, and market uncertainties in determining the health co-benefits or co-harms. The project will produce open-source model code and teaching materials for research and educational purposes. It will also train undergraduate and doctoral students in a highly interdisciplinary environment. Findings are intended to guide practitioners to improve their decisions to better navigate the climate-health nexus.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.