As part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative, the University of Florida is one of four academic institutions tasked with building scientific capacities and seeking solutions for the effects of environmental changes on human health.
Led by the NSF Directorates for Geosciences (GEO), Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), and STEM Education, the new initiative unites geoscientists, health professionals, social scientists, and educators from around the country to advance research and solutions for climate-related health issues.
At UF, the principal investigators are Antar Jutla, Ph.D., an associate professor with Engineering and School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment, and Lee Revere, Ph.D., a professor and Florida Blue Endowed Chair at the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions Department of Health Services Research, Management and Policy.
Their NSF $500,000 grant – one of four exploring environmental change and health – calls for a cross-disciplinary, multi-institute study of atmospheric conditions, bioaerosols (airborne particles from biological sources such as plants and animals) and infectious pathogens.
“Scientists will work with health care managers to understand how climate sensitivities can be used to make informed decisions. And health care providers will work with geoscientists to inform their predictive modeling algorithms” Jutla said. This grant, he added, is specific to bioaerosols and associated pathogens, as well as improving how environmental findings are communicated within and outside of health care systems.
For his part, Jutla will continue to advance his pathogen-prediction models, which use NASA and NOAA satellite data to predict disease outbreaks weeks in advance based on climate and weather conditions and integrating population vulnerabilities to overall modeling processes.
“If we have a prediction system for airborne viruses, we could basically tell hospitals, health care-delivery systems that a particular time of the year has greater potential for exposure of viruses to human population,” Jutla said. “And then that could ultimately lead to enhanced clinical decision making and health care system preparedness.”
Jutla recently returned from Kenya, where he partnered with United Nations Foundation and Kenyan Bureau of Statistics to build a real-time cholera prediction system for the country. Jutla plans to expand the reach to predict more water- and air-borne diseases. The models, which incorporate knowledge from AI machine learning and traditional techniques, will inform decisions and build human capacities in regions that lack adequate water and sanitation infrastructure.
With the NSF initiative, Jutla and Revere will focus on three deliverables:
- Build scientific capacity: Create a collective interdisciplinary scientific inquiry and fellowship with expertise from universities and institutes to develop frameworks for the prediction (when, where, and how) and prevention(what to do) of the prevalence of relevant pathogens and/or associated bioaerosols.
- Develop state-of-the-art tools and best practices to include evidence-based public health approaches to standardize variability, ease uncertainty and promote linearity from and within the healthcare systems and climatic processes.
- Develop Predict-Prevent Data Exchange will be a part of UF’s air observatory Jutla plans to establish. This data exchange will host case studies and associated data, which will be accessible to academic institutions to share knowledge, define complex interdisciplinary problems, and collaborate to find solutions with input from health professionals, physicians, and related decision-makers.
“We want to concentrate the entire effort at UF so we can make something called an air pathogen observatory, which will host a knowledge of airborne pathogens,” Jutla noted. “Then we will use AI large-language models to understand emerging patterns of transmission of viruses in the world.”
“This,” Jutla noted, “will help answer questions such as ‘Is there something going in climate and weather processes in China or Africa that may need to be looked at carefully from the standpoint of airborne respiratory pathogens? Should there be a sampling conducted in India when there are signals that bioaerosol-based pathogenic activity may originate from there?’ This is an ambitious project, but our group, collaborators and partners are onto it.”
Jutla’s study revolves around the spread of pathogens (disease-causing microorganisms) in the air and water. One area of focus is the possible spread of pathogens through sea spray, which transfers aerosols when bubbles from the water and waves burst into the air.
“Right now, there is limited and siloed knowledge that exists in the literature that sea sprays are contributing to the spread of pathogens,” he said. He wants UF to lead that charge, investigating sea spray’s patterns and behaviors in relation to wind speeds, temperature, marine ecology and other biological factors.
Co-principal investigator Revere leads the project’s health care leadership advisory panel. The panel is made up of clinicians and administrators from Gulf Coast area academic health care centers and hospital systems.
“In clinical terms, we talk about the value of delivering the right care at the right time and at the right place,” Revere said. “In that same vein, we will be working to understand how to give health care providers the right information at the right time and in the right way. Providers and administrators already receive a lot of information to assist with decision-making. We want to determine how we can communicate the geoscientists’ predictions in a timely, efficient and productive manner, particularly when there is so much competing information.”
For example, with the proper communication systems in place, geoscientists could notify clinicians and health care systems that vibrio bacteria, which are found in coastal waters and pose a serious threat to human health, are prevalent in certain areas, Revere said.
That knowledge could help physicians determine what tests to order or what questions to ask patients if they present with symptoms of a vibrio infection. Swift action can save lives; vibrio infection is fatal in 30% of cases and may lead to amputation if the bacteria enter through an open cut in the skin and is not treated within 48 hours.
Armed with information on vibrio bacteria levels in local waters, health care providers and public health agencies could also warn patients and the public about the risk of swimming or water sports.
Revere is excited about the opportunities for collaboration the new research coordinated network provides.
“As academics we get fairly narrowly focused in our work and as we progress in our career, we get even more specialized in what we know and that means we often know a lot less about other fields,” she said. “With this project we will overlap our knowledge bases and pursue a common goal: to improve or maintain human health.”
Other UF researchers involved in this initiative are Steering Committee members Professor Hugh Fan, Ph.D., from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Norman Beatty, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at UF’s Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine.
Keith Benson, Ph.D., a clinical professor at PHHP’s Department of Health Services Research, Management and Policy, and Runi Foster, a clinical associate professor in UF’s College of Medicine, also serve on the initiative’s Healthcare Leaders Advisory Panel. Network collaborators are Jose Burgos, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health with PHHP, and Katherine Deliz, Ph.D., an assistant professor with Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment with the College of Engineering.
The larger NSF initiative has three other components, with separate grants for each area of study:
- Private well water research, particularly on the Gulf coast, led by Auburn University
- OneEarth, OneHealth, a study of ecosystems and health led by the University of Illinois
- GeoCAFE, an effort to convene experts, accelerate progress and expand geoscience research on environmental change and human health, led by Boston University
“We cannot separate the environment in which humans live and work, and we, environmental engineers, can make human lives better,” Jutla said. “I tell my graduate students if we can save one life from what we are doing, we are OK. We are good.”