Southwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health (SCORCH)
NIH
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
PROJECT ABSTRACT – Component: Overall Arid lands are home to one in three people, totaling a population of more than 2 billion spanning the globe. Arid land communities are facing multiple climate change-exacerbated threats impacting health including extreme heat events, wildfires, dust storms, biodiversity loss, emerging pathogens, poor air quality, and drought. The Southwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health (SCORCH) brings together transdisciplinary research groups to conduct team-science projects addressing the health needs of arid lands communities adapting to climate change. The Center's overarching mission is to improve health equity across the lifespan by enhancing community partnerships and supporting adaptation efforts by Indigenous, Latinx, low-resource urban, and rural communities in the Southwestern United States and globally. Based at the University of Arizona (UArizona), home of internationally recognized climate science and adaptation researchers and Centers, SCORCH will serve as a foundation for expanding UArizona campus initiatives aiming to increase health research at the intersection of climate change science. The three-year planning phase will be used to identify researchers whose expertise align with climate change and health across UArizona and the region, build transdisciplinary teams, identify priority research areas for community adaptation planning, and implement two research projects to develop our initial Research Focus Group (RFG) themes. Our initial three RFGs build on the expertise of the current SCORCH team members and are purposefully broad to encompass evolving research priorities. These three themes include: 1) Health impacts of extreme weather events; 2) Forecasting and early warning of climate change health outcomes; and 3) Adaptive responses in the built environment. Research Project 1 aligns with RFG 2 and 3, to develop an assessment tool that can predict potential health outcomes of greenspace designs. Research Project 2 aligns with RFG 1 to examine the role of maternal exposure to extreme heat and long-term child health outcomes. Through community engaged activities founded on respect and trust, led by the Community Engagement Core, and novel data visualization services, led by the Integrated Data Visualization Core, we will deepen existing and develop new partnerships with academic and community entities with diverse lived experiences and knowledge frameworks. The geographic location of SCORCH in the Southwestern United States provides unique research opportunities to support adaptation and resilience efforts of Indigenous, Latinx, low-resource urban, and rural communities in the region as well as addressing the unique circumstances found in borderland areas. The potential international reach of SCORCH enables high-impact climate change and health initiatives that will translate globally. PROJECT NARRATIVE – Component: Overall The Southwest Center for Resilience in Climate Change and Health (SCORCH) will bring together transdisciplinary research groups to conduct solutions-oriented team-science projects responsive to the human health needs of Arid Lands communities adapting to climate change. The Center’s overarching mission is to improve health equity across the lifespan by enhancing existing community partnerships and supporting adaptation efforts by Indigenous, Latinx, low resource urban and rural communities in the southwestern United States and globally. Research will span several areas including: Research Focus Groups; 1) Health effects of extreme weather events, 2) Forecasting and Early Warning, and 3) Adaptive Responses to the Built Environment.
Research Centers