Integrating Public and Ecosystem Health Systems to Foster Resilience: A Workshop to Identify Research to Bridge the Knowledge-To-Action Gap

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Ecosystems form the foundation upon which society can survive and thrive, providing food, water, air, materials, and recreation. These connections between people and their environments are under stress from human-driven climate change, pollution, resource exploitation, and other actions that may have implications for public health. The integral connection between nature and human health is recognized and has been explored through different bodies of work; however, because of the breadth of this issue, many implications regarding public health are not well characterized. This has created a gap in understanding the interconnections between public health and ecosystem health systems and how ecosystem resiliency may affect public health.

To inform the development of a research agenda aimed at bridging the knowledge-to-action gap related to integrating public and ecological health to foster resilience, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop across three days that brought together interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners from the public health, natural resource management, and environmental protection communities to exchange knowledge, discuss critical gaps in understanding and practice, and identify promising research that could support the development of domestic and international policy and practice. Day 1 of the workshop, held on September 19, 2022, addressed the following question: What has been learned about how to integrate public health and nature into research, policy, and practice to foster resilience? Days 2 and 3, held on September 29 and 30, 2022, explored advancement opportunities in transdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship to improve integration of public health and nature and inform policy and practice and opportunities to bridge the knowledge-to-action gap with strategies to translate knowledge into policy and practice. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

Publication information

112 pages · 8.5 x 11 · paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-70051-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-70052-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/26896

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Integrating Public and Ecosystem Health Systems to Foster Resilience: A Workshop to Identify Research to Bridge the Knowledge-to-Action Gap: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Kathleen M. Rest

Kathleen Rest is a Senior Fellow at the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy and the recently retired Executive Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) where she oversaw the organization’s work on clean energy and transportation, climate change, sustainable agriculture, global security, and protecting the integrity of science in public policy. Prior to joining UCS, she served as the Acting Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as a faculty member in several medical schools. Her expertise includes public and environmental health, public policy, and worker health and safety. She has international experience as a researcher and advisor on occupation and environmental health issues, served on several National Academies Committees, and authored numerous articles and book chapters on occupational and environmental health issues. She is on the Board of Advisors for the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University Law School and is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advance of Science. She is a member of the American Public Health Association and the Massachusetts Public Health Association. She holds a Ph.D. in health policy from Boston University and a MPA from the University of Arizona.

Katie K. Arkema

Katie Arkema is a Senior Earth Scientist in the Coastal Science Division of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Affiliate Faculty at the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the effects of global change on coupled human-natural systems and the development of innovative solutions to support the energy and resilience needs of coastal communities. Prior to joining PNNL, Katie was lead scientist at the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Nexus Fellowship from the U.S. Department of State and recently served as a lead author on the expert working group for the International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-based Features for Flood Risk Management, spearhead by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Katie holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.A. in ecology with a minor in Latin American studies from Princeton University.

Aaron S. Bernstein

Aaron Bernstein is the interim director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and a pediatric hospitalist at Boston Children’s Hospital. He studies the effects of global environmental changes, including climate change and the loss of biodiversity, on health. He was co-author and co-editor of Sustaining Life which presents the relationships between human health and biodiversity and received several awards, including best biology book of the year from the Library Journal. He has served on the executive committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics National Council on Environmental Health and the Board of Scientific Councilors to the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health. He received his degrees in medicine and public health from the University of Chicago and Harvard, respectively and completed residency in the Harvard/Boston University combined program in pediatrics. He was named a Harvard University Zuckerman Fellow in 2008. He currently serves on the Steering Committee for the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Action Collaborative on Decarbonizing the U.S. Healthcare System and was a leader in organizing a National Academies planning meeting on climate change and child health, supported by the NAM and the Burroughs Welcome Fund.

Shanondora M. Billiot

Shanondora Billiot (United Houma Nation) is an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University with research affiliations at University of Illinois and University of Houston. Her research uses mixed methods to explore indigenous-specific risk and protective factors to global environmental change exposure and pathways to health outcomes within Indigenous populations with the goal to co-develop adaptation activities. Dr. Billiot is currently a Co-Principal Investigator on an interdisciplinary team exploring resilience, culture, climate, and movement among an Indigenous community on the Gulf Coast funded by National Academies’ Gulf Research Program Thriving Communities Grant. She is currently serving as a Technical Advisory Member of the Climate Change Taskforce for the National Congress of American Indians as well as an advisory board member for the Social Responses to a Changing Environment Grand Challenge lead by the Academy of Social Workers. In addition, she is a Liaison Member of the Community Board for Engagement and Evaluation of the Gulf Research Program within the National Academies. She earned a Ph.D. in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis as a Henry Roe Cloud visiting doctoral fellow at Yale University.

Rodolfo Dirzo

Rodolfo Dirzo (NAS) is a Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology and a Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. His scientific work examines the study of species interactions in tropical ecosystems from California, Latin America, and other tropical areas of the world. Recent research highlights the decline of animal life (“defaunation”), and how this affects ecosystem processes/services (e.g. disease regulation). His work extends to science education programs conducted with underserved children in the Bay Area in California and other study sites. He has also co-authored the new Framework for K-12 Science Education.

Benis N. Egoh

Benis Egoh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine. She is an expert in modelling, mapping and valuing ecosystem services, the benefits humans get from nature. She applies her modeling work within the context of prioritizing areas such as protected areas and restoration areas for conservation action as well as understanding human’s impacts. She is also interested in the links between ecosystem services and human health and acted as a reviewer for The World Wildlife Fund’s “One Health” framework. As an interdisciplinary scientist, her work cuts across various disciplines, including but not limited to conservation, restoration, economics, and hydrology. She has a strong focus on policy and was actively involved in the development of a framework for mapping ecosystem services that is currently being used in 28 European Union (EU) countries. While working for European Commission, Dr. Egoh’s work was pivotal in implementing the integration of ecosystem services into the EU biodiversity strategy for 2020. She is widely published and has generated several well cited peer reviewed papers and policy documents (>10,000 citations). She is a lead author for the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and an executive committee member for the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP), a vibrant global network of about 3,000 scientists working in the ecosystem services field. Recently (2021), Dr. Egoh guest edited a special collection on restoration and rewilding for PLoSONE. She has been named a Sloan Research Fellow for 2022.

Albert I. Ko

Albert Icksang Ko is the Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and a Collaborating Researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazilian Ministry of Health. His research centers on the health problems that have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbanization and social inequity. Dr. Ko coordinates a research program in Brazil, which focuses on delineating the role of social marginalization, urban ecology and climate in the emergence of infectious disease threats in informal settlements and implementing community-based interventions in these settings. He and his team have also mobilized research capacity to respond to multiple epidemics, which include meningitis, leptospirosis, dengue, Zika virus infection and associated birth defects, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Ko is Program Director of the Fogarty/National Institutes of Health Global Health Equity Scholars Program which provides training opportunities at 24 collaborating international sites. He is a member of the World Health Organization Research and Development Taskforce for Zika Virus and the Research and Development Blueprint Working Group. During the pandemic, he served as co-chair of Governor Lamont’s Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group. Dr. Ko continues to advise the Governor and the State of Connecticut on its pandemic prevention and control plan, as well as supporting the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in its COVID-19 response in Brazil.

Jessica M. LeClair

Jessica LeClair is a clinical faculty member and Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Wisconsin (UW)–Madison School of Nursing, with affiliated appointments at the Global Health Institute, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and the School of Medicine and Public Health. Past experiences include working as a public health nurse for Public Health Madison and Dane County, and as a community health nurse for the Ho-Chunk Nation. She has co-chaired the Wisconsin Public Health Association’s Climate and Health Section, the Global Nurses Climate Change Committee with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, and the Sustainable Madison Committee. Recent awards include the Midwest Nursing Research Society’s Distinguished Student Award (2022) and the Public Health Nursing (PHN) Journal 2021 PHN Paper of the Year. LeClair is currently a Jonas Scholar (2021-2023) and was a Planetary Health Scholar with the Global Health Institute at UW-Madison (2020-2021)). She is a registered nurse and received an MPH, where she focused on the intersection of climate, health, and equity. Her long-term goal is to build a program of research that identifies and facilitates effective public health practices that advance climate justice and population health.

Jonathan M. Sleeman

Jonathan Sleeman leads a team to advance wildlife health science for the benefit of animals, humans, and the environment through multidisciplinary research and technical assistance to federal, state, and tribal agencies as well as internationally as a World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) Collaborating Centre. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, School of Veterinary Medicine. He has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications and several book chapters all on the topics of wildlife and ecosystem health. Dr. Sleeman is active in various scientific organizations, including the Wildlife Disease Association and Ecohealth International, and serves on the OIE’s Working Group on Wildlife. He is board certified by the American College of Zoological Medicine and received his veterinary degree and master’s degree in zoology from the University of Cambridge, England. Previous positions include Director of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Center in Rwanda and Wildlife Veterinarian for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

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Integrating Public and Ecosystem Health Systems to Foster Resilience: A Workshop to Identify Research to Bridge the Knowledge-To-Action Gap

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