Theme

The aim of this research incubator is to foster Rutgers-led team-based research at the nexus of climate and health. The relationship between climate change and health is complex. Understanding the direct and indirect effects of climate on health outcomes will require multidisciplinary and multifaceted approaches. Public and private funders alike have signaled immense interest in growing research discoveries within this nexus. Thus, this incubator is intended to support Rutgers researchers as they nurture bold new projects and position themselves for future external funding opportunities in this critical area.
 
The theme of this incubator is on research related to the health-related aspects of climate change. While broad, research in this area must address human health outcomes or impacts and might include, but is not limited to topics such as:

• Health impacts of climate change drivers or climate-related exposure pathways (e.g., increased temperature; extreme weather events; wildfires; drought; floods; sea level rise; poor air, food, and/or water quality; changes in infectious agents and vectors; population displacement); 
• Climate-related health outcomes (e.g., heat-related illness; cardiopulmonary illness; food-, water-, and vector-borne diseases; stress and mental health outcomes); and 
• Health impacts of efforts to reduce the pollution that causes climate change as well as efforts to adapt to or build resilience to changing climate conditions such as installation of nature-based systems and hard infrastructure (e.g., transportation, electricity, etc.), adoption of policies that require adaptive practices such as building elevation and flood-proofing, and/or relocation of vulnerable populations.  
• Novel approaches to inform climate change and health impacts (e.g., computational methods and artificial intelligence), community-based collaborative research, and research at the intersection of social or environmental vulnerabilities and climate-induced health impacts.