Community Resilience and Health Collaboration Team

Improving community resilience and well-being by strengthening research and developing tools to increase understanding of interdependent social, natural, and built systems in the Arctic.

Scope of Activities

For a community to be resilient, there are many interacting elements including the community’s outlook, governance and leadership structures, interpersonal networks, preparedness, preventive and curative health services, food security, place-based knowledge, and access to resources such as clean air and water, energy, shelter, technology, and transportation. Arctic communities have been resilient in the face of change since time immemorial. Yet, the last half-century has brought changes of unprecedented pace and scale with implications for economies, cultures, the environment, and health.

Rapid warming due to climate change has cascading impacts on human health and wildlife health. Related changes in weather, increased risks from infectious diseases, and toxic algal blooms are all growing threats to social, natural, and built systems. Coupled with these changes are increasing health disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Mega-events, such as the public health emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic, can impose additional shocks that may result in lasting social and economic changes. While Alaska-based leaders are making progress in identifying urgent health needs, it remains the state with the greatest health security challenges. Taken individually, these various stressors pose formidable challenges for community resilience, health, and well-being. Taken together, combinations of stressors can greatly complicate resilience-building efforts and create difficult decisions about what and how to prioritize.

Thanks to advances in technology and innovations in research methodologies including participatory research and Indigenous approaches such as co-production of knowledge, the circumpolar knowledge base related to community resilience and health will continue to grow over the next five years. These advances will lead to research outcomes that inform agency and management decisions. Facilitated by developments in data management, modeling, observations (both satellite and in situ), and innovations in technology (including advanced computing and machine learning), and other foundational activities, notable improvements are expected in the predictive understanding of stressors, their characteristics, co-occurrence, and expected changes over time, from local to circumpolar scales. Recent research has also demonstrated the contributions to community sustainability and well-being that come with programs advancing cultural heritage, language preservation, and the use of museum and archival collections that promote health and help connect generations in a rapidly changing world.

Advances and new knowledge will lead to an improved understanding of the physical and social impacts of stressors as well as the implications for different community-based solutions. For example, through environmental observations and health surveillance networks, the design and implementation of computational models will strengthen methods for measuring multidimensional threats to community resilience and well-being (e.g., environmental and social changes that impact Arctic communities; energy, food security, and water quality; thawing permafrost and coastal erosion; concerns regarding built systems; and health disparities). Similarly, models can provide critical information to understand the interdependence of human and environmental systems, leading to improved health outcomes and enhanced resilience via a comprehensive methodology, such as the One Health approach, applied to the Arctic. Research will examine the ways that complex global stressors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, interface with Arctic community resilience and health.

Furthermore, the equitable inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge holders will strengthen methods for measuring multidimensional threats to community resilience and health, including but not limited to the impacts of sea level rise, coastal erosion, permafrost thaw, and other environmental changes on societies and culture, food security and water quality, and built systems. Improvements in meaningful engagement with Indigenous and local organizations through participatory research includes mutually beneficial research involving co-production throughout the research cycle (such as identifying research questions, conducting research, developing wellness indicators, producing results, and disseminating findings together) will lead to more relevant and timely community-based knowledge that can be used by decision-makers like health services providers and community and civic leaders.

Increased connectivity with other Arctic nations will facilitate stronger information sharing and foster collaborative international research projects that advance understanding of transboundary resilience and health challenges. These expected research developments illustrate the broad scope of progress and its potential to both inform fundamental understanding of these highly complex landscapes and meet the needs of Arctic communities to develop novel solutions in the face of emerging challenges.



Team Leaders

Suzanne van Drunick
USEPA Office of Research and Development

Katherine Ginsbach
O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law

Emily Trentacoste
US EPA

Heather Scobie
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Website)

Eva Patton

Brenna Simons-Petrusa
Arctic Investigations Program

Dana Bruden
Centers for Disease Control


Deliverables from the Arctic Research Plan

1.1 Support the health of Arctic residents through research on public health needs, disparities, and delivery.

  • 1.1.1 Initiate a Federally-funded project with local partners researching the feasibility and success rate in the treatment of chronic Hepatitis C in remote Arctic communities.
  • 1.1.2 Conduct research on preventive measures for COVID-19 disease and evaluate lessons learned for future pandemic preparedness in the Arctic. Prepare a report on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in preventing hospitalizations specifically within Alaska.
  • 1.1.3 Continue research on air quality and human health. This will include an evaluation of outdoor air quality and health outcomes in Alaskan communities and a Federally-funded, local-partner-conducted evaluation of interventions to improve indoor air quality and decrease respiratory symptoms in children. Research will be shared and summarized in webinars, publications, and reports.
  • 1.1.4 Along with local health partners, conduct research to support understanding and awareness of emerging zoonotic disease threats identified in the CDC's One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization for Alaska workshop report.
  • 1.1.5 Along with collaborating partners, investigate human illness associated with harmful algal blooms (HABs), and develop and distribute preventive messaging based on what is learned.

1.2 Address emerging threats to food safety and access, as well as food and nutrition security in the Arctic, through research that addresses how climate and environmental change is affecting the abundance, accessibility, and use of traditional foods and traditional ways of life.

  • 1.2.1 Provide funding opportunities for research on food safety and food and nutrition security in the Arctic.
  • 1.2.2 Provide funding opportunities and conduct studies on the impact of harmful algal blooms (HABs) on availability and safety of traditional and commercial foods.
  • 1.2.3 Conduct research and produce a report on seabird mortality events in the Bering Sea, including severity, causes, and ecological implications.
  • 1.2.4 Conduct investigations and report on marine mammal unusual mortality events in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas to evaluate the severity, causes, ecological implications, and potential health risks to traditional users.
  • 1.2.5 Conduct investigations and report on trends in abundance, distribution, and condition of ice-dependent marine mammals in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas to identify and forecast changes that may impact food security and the long-term sustainability of traditional food supplies.
  • 1.2.6 Assess and model changes in abundance, distribution, and harvest of select marine mammals and fishes that are food sources in rural Alaska.
  • 1.2.7 Fund and conduct research, and produce a report, on changes in abundance and distribution of migratory caribou in Arctic Alaska.
  • 1.2.8 Provide funding opportunities and conduct research, and produce a report, on the impacts of rapid expansion of beaver habitat in the U.S. Arctic, including effects on fisheries and ecosystem services, access to traditional foods, and overall community health.
  • 1.2.9 Host a session at the 2023 Arctic One Health, One Future conference to advance understanding of causes and consequences of emerging threats to Arctic food safety and security, and identify high-priority research needs.

1.3 Provide research and technical support for water and sanitation infrastructure.

  • 1.3.1 Synthesize and expand upon existing efforts to create data visualization maps of areas at high risk for coastal erosion, permafrost thaw, and flooding within specified future time periods (e.g., 10 years, 50 years, 100 years) to identify at-risk areas and inform investments in climate resilient infrastructure.
  • 1.3.2 Develop a publicly accessible database for information on drinking water contaminants (including PFAS) and effective treatment processes. The database will be of use to water treatment operators, regulatory agencies, researchers, and treatment process consultants and designers. It could also support responses to emergency contamination events.
  • 1.3.3 Support research on the feasibility of PFAS treatment for surface water and groundwater in the Arctic. This will help inform a strategy on PFAS remediation of contaminated sites.

Accomplishments

To be added in 2023.