4

Meeting the Challenge of Moving from Knowledge to Action¹

Aileen Lee, from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, noted the intricate, intimate, and inescapable ways the natural world undergirds the life support systems that sustain human health. She also pointed out that failing to provide dependable and equitable access to health care leads to behaviors that further degrade Earth’s foundational ecosystems. When her organization explored opportunities and solutions at the intersection of public and ecosystem health, she and her colleagues were intrigued by the possibility that the holistic and interdisciplinary approach that innovators working at this interface were taking might hold promise for addressing complex systems problems and advancing solutions that promote ecosystem resilience.

Lee acknowledged that the Foundation was optimistic that the multiple crises at the outset of this decade might create a window of opportunity not only to recognize the interconnected nature of the problems facing humanity but also to muster the will to invest in the solutions. She acknowledged, however, that despite the unprecedented level of apparent interest in understanding the connections between human and ecosystem health, there is little evidence of meaningful policy developments or action. “Heightened attention to the topic has not been enough to overcome entrenched institutional and

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¹ The content of the workshop proceedings does not necessarily follow the order of the meeting agenda, and have been slightly rearranged for clarity and flow. The workshop agenda can be found in Appendix C.

² This list is the rapporteurs’ summary of the main points made by the speaker, and the statements have not been endorsed or verified by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

structural barriers that reinforce some natural inertia and prevailing incentives that keep environmental health interventions largely siloed,” said Lee. “As we watch this pattern unfold in setting after setting, we find that the promise of integrating human and environmental health considerations seems to have plateaued a bit, not because people do not really understand the problem but because they lack the incentives, capacity, and decision-ready tools to operationalize the necessary solutions.”

While the spotlight that the COVID-19 pandemic and other converging global crises have shone on the intersection of human and environmental health has created an unprecedented opportunity, Lee said there is a risk that this moment of opportunity will pass without taking knowledge that defines the problem and translating it into actionable knowledge that enables operationalizing and scaling solutions. Toward that end, this workshop reflects an important acknowledgment that setting a research agenda for integrating public and ecosystem health is not just about the “what” of defining the research questions. Instead, it is as much about the “how” of embracing knowledge production practices that generate actionable and decision-ready information delivered to the right audiences. The “how,” she added, requires reaching across institutional barriers to pursue innovative knowledge collaborations across silos, disciplines, sectors, and social groups.

Today, human society is facing interlinked crises of nature loss, climate change, public health, and social inequity rooted in fundamental choices about how social and economic activities are organized, said Lee. Changing this trajectory may require fundamental and rapid transformation of the systems that humans have relied on to grow food, power enterprises, distribute goods, and more. She noted that this transformation may require reimagining decisions about how food and other goods are consumed, how economic behavior is incentivized, how to increase social equity and inclusion, and how to deploy and distribute society’s benefits more equitably.

To Lee, driving the integration of public and ecosystem health can be an important lever for producing the needed systems change. Moreover, much of the knowledge that underpins the necessary solutions is already within reach. The challenge, she said, is to unleash the forms of collaboration that can support the intentional co-creation and implementation of smart, scalable solutions that can make a difference. “I trust that the research community has the insights and tools to do this effectively if they can find ways to really deliver their knowledge in partnership with communities, governments, and the private sector,” said Lee.

DISCUSSION

Moderated by Kathleen Rest, Boston University

When asked to provide examples of the signals that make her optimistic or pessimistic about addressing global environmental crises, Lee said she is optimistic that businesses, governments, and others are saying they hear the researchers and advocates who have been championing the importance of looking at the interlinked crises and thinking about how solutions exist at the intersection of ecosystem health, human health, and climate. For example, she was at a recent United Nations General Assembly meeting where she had the opportunity to see companies thinking together about how they will contribute to solving these problems. “What they are looking for are actionable steps that can push us in this direction,” said Lee. “I sense that there is a willingness and an openness to this that I have not heard before.”

Benis Egoh, from the University of California, Irvine, asked Lee if she had thoughts about how to overcome the challenge of funding interdisciplinary science. From the viewpoint of a funder, Lee

described an opportunity for more collaborations across disciplines among the funders. One limitation is that many foundations have defined boundaries and missions that cause them trouble when trying to collaborate and work outside those boundaries.

Her organization, however, has had great success in working with partners who bring slightly different pieces of the puzzle to the table and forming collaborations such as the Climate and Land Use Alliance. Her organization brings a focus on nature to this alliance, while others bring a focus on climate or equity and human rights. While each partner devotes perhaps 80 percent of their portfolios to their focus areas, the alliance has worked together on the topics that cut across those areas of focus.

Lee said the theme of knowledge to action is more compelling to potential donors who want to see the potential impact of the work they fund. Compelling results, she said, seem to break down silos among the funders. “From the standpoint of the research community, to the extent that you are pulling together projects that bridge this knowledge-to-action gap, I think the barriers to funding interdisciplinary research drop quite a bit,” said Lee.

Jonathan Sleeman, from the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center, asked Lee if she could elaborate on her comments about barriers and perhaps provide some guidance on how to address those barriers. Lee prefaced her response by saying that, given the work her organization does, she and her colleagues have entered this space from the conservation side. But she has been part of many discussions about why this is important, and the organizations on the conservation side trying to make the case for why the public health community should care tend to dominate the conversations. Thus, her impression is that there is not as much participation from organizations looking at this problem from the public health side. Another barrier she sees is a lack of a whole-of-government approach that commits to working across agencies to move all the pieces in the right direction.

Mahtab Jafari, from the University of California, Irvine, asked Lee if she had examples of research her organization funded that resulted in changes in policies. Lee replied that the Natural Capital Project focused on how to integrate and mainstream the concepts of natural capital into decision making by policy makers and multilateral donors. This effort has been effective in several partner countries and partner agencies at helping to provide the knowledge and decision-ready support tools that the policy makers are using to make decisions.

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