Pivotal Interfaces of Environmental Health and Infectious Disease Research to Inform Responses to Outbreaks

This workshop will explore how environmental health tools, technologies, and methodologies can be leveraged to inform real-time public health decision making about infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics. The workshop may feature several case studies of infectious disease outbreaks for which spread and exposure is mediated, in part, by environmental pollution and conditions.

An ad hoc planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize and convene a workshop to explore how environmental health tools, technologies, and methodologies can be leveraged to inform real-time public health decision making about infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics. The workshop may feature several case studies of infectious disease outbreaks for which spread and exposure is mediated, in part, by environmental pollution and conditions, through the following questions:

1) How can advances in environmental exposure assessment be applied to identify, predict, or monitor critical pathways by which humans are exposed to infectious agents?

2)  How can recent advances in climate and environmental health modeling techniques be applied to better understand the biology of pathogens, vectors, and hosts; predict transmission dynamics; and provide early warning of emerging infectious diseases?

3) How can environmental pollutants exposure models and data integration approaches be leveraged to predict population vulnerability/risk to infection?

4) How sensitive is the initial emergence of infectious disease outbreaks to variations in environmental conditions?

The presentations and discussions at the workshop will be documented in a workshop proceedings, written by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.