University of Newcastle researchers will play a frontline role in a new research network that aims to protect Australians against the health impacts of climate change.
The national Healthy Environments And Lives (HEAL) network brings together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, sustainable development, environmental epidemiology, and data science and communication to address climate change and its impacts on health.
HEAL, which was launched last week, will be funded for five years through a $10 million National Health and Medical Research Council Special Initiative in Human Health and Environmental Change.
It will operate across all Australian states and territories.
As part of HEAL, researchers, practitioners, communities and policymakers will work together on urban health, bushfires, air, soil and water pollution, food security, heatwaves and other extreme events, and biosecurity.
The University of Newcastle is contributing to two of the seven priority themes: bushfires, air pollution and extreme events, to be led by Associate Professor Anthony Kiem, and food, soil and water security, to be led by Dr Thava Palanisami.
"The first aim of the priority theme on bushfires, air pollution and extreme events is to better understand current and future impacts of extreme events like bushfires, floods, droughts, and storms on human health," Associate Professor Kiem said.
"The second is to use those insights to develop and implement adaptation strategies that improve the resilience of the health sector to changing climate conditions."
Dr Palanisami said his team "aims to develop system solutions to improve food, soil and water security, reduce pollutant exposure, and mitigate associated health risks".
"Environmental change is crucial in the context of future food, soil and water security, resource planning and waste management," said Dr Palanisami.
HEAL comprises 100 researchers set to create a national risk assessment of current and future health burdens driven by environmental change in Australia.
"We will join forces to address climate change and other environmental challenges, such as bushfires, air pollution, infectious diseases and heatwaves that have a massive burden on our health and ecosystems," HEAL's Director, Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis from The Australian National University, said.
"It is a very exciting opportunity to do something which is new and different, which builds momentum from grassroots to research to policy making.
"This is a historic investment in our future. This coordinated group of experts and practitioners will substantially expand the boundaries of Australia's environmental, climate change and health research community."
The network will also develop a digital knowledge-action hub, the HEAL Observatory, to support the health sector by providing data and tools that will inform local, state and national decision-making.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and knowledge will be at the heart of the HEAL network.
Other priority topic areas include a focus on children and mothers and the impacts associated with environmental pollution, and how climate change is disproportionately affecting people living in rural and remote communities and regions.
