Transforming EPA Science to Meet Today's and Tomorrow's Challenges (2023) / Chapter Skim
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3 A One EnvironmentOne Health Approach for ORD
3 A One EnvironmentOne Health Approach for ORD
Pages 30-59
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holistically addressing interconnected human health and ecological risks, (2) characterizing and addressing environmental justice and cumulative risk, and (3)
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and frameworks of key characteristics to establish a weight-of-evidence, integrated approach to validate chronic and acute disease out comes and characterize health risks in communities and larger populations. No one assessment approach can be used to understand multiple stressors and their interactions.
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. BOX 3-1 Harmful Algal Blooms in the Indian River Lagoon Estuary The Indian River Lagoon (IRL)
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There is a prohi bition on taking pufferfish in the waters of five counties bordering the IRL.d The Florida Department of Environmental Protection reports that the IRL provides about 50 percent of the annual fish harvest along the east coast of Florida and the overall economic value attributable to the estuary eco system was estimated at $7.6 billion in 2014.e Harmful algal blooms pose risks of significant economic impacts on Florida, including ● High costs of cleaning up beaches or waterways during substantial bloom events; ● Reductions in tourism and property values as a result of unsightly shorelines, odors from decaying mate rial, and health hazards; ● Declines in recreational activities, such as swimming, boating, and fishing; ● Weakened commercial fisheries due to shellfish closures, fish stock declines, and reductions in consumer interest.f a See https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/research/current/irl-nep; https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/monitoring/ historical-events/brown-tide. b See https://myfwc.com/research/manatee/rescue-mortality-response/ume.
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In Chapter 5, the committee provides examples of emerging tools and methods that could help address these challenges. Environmental Justice and Cumulative Risk Most adverse human health and ecosystem impacts are the result of the cumulative effects of multiple interactive environmental and social stressors.
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. Four key concepts underlie emerging scientific knowledge about cumulative impacts: ● Health disparities among racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and other marginalized groups are sig nificant and exist for chronic diseases, such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, neurodevelop ment, and maternal and perinatal health outcomes that are linked to social and environmental factors; ● Inequalities in exposures to environmental hazards are significant and linked to increased risk of adverse health outcomes; ● Intrinsic biological and physiological factors including underlying chronic disease, life stage, malnutrition, inflammation, and oxidative stress can amplify the effects of environmental fac tors and contribute to differences in the frequency and severity of environmentally mediated disease across population groups; and ● Extrinsic social and structural factors at the individual and community levels may amplify the effects of environmental hazards and contribute to health disparities.
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ORD has recently recognized the importance with the issuance of its new Cumulative Impacts Research: Recommendations for EPA's Office of Research and Development.3 Some of the advanced tools and methods that could be used in pursuit of that objective include but are not limited to ● Exposure sensors for multiple stressors (e.g., fence-line monitoring) ; ● Geospatial tools/analysis to link multiple place-based stressors and sources of exposure, in cluding quantification of social stressors; ● Development and assessment of alternative metrics of exposure that cannot be measured di rectly or holistically characterized (e.g., proximity)
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. Sea level rise and flooding due to storm surge pose additional threats to human health due to the flooding of sites that store, utilize, or emit hazardous materials.
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The design of effective mitigation strategies relies on understanding the contributions of natural and built systems that influence climate change, as well as important feedbacks between climate, atmospheric chemistry, and ecosystems. Also, little anticipatory research has systematically characterized the implications of extreme weather events for industrial facilities handling hazardous waste and contaminated sites -- including the additional threat posed by flooding, storm surge, rising sea levels -- for disadvantaged populations who are more likely to live near hazardous waste and industrial facilities (Cushing et al., 2015)
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. A One Environment–One Health Research Framework For the past two-plus decades, public health communities in the United States and across the globe have developed and applied a One Health approach to "attain optimal health for people, animals and our environment" (AVMA, 2008)
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Challenges such as assessing ecological and human risk holistically, assessing cumulative risk and environmental justice, and understanding the implications of climate change will require a new level of integration of research planning, and a new level of embedding that process in the broader community of stakeholders who are the audience for and the collaborators in that research.
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to community and ecosystem levels. There is also a greater awareness that conducting environmental science to understand the sources of stress and their effects on environmental health requires a much more holistic approach that encompasses a range of scientific disciplines and integration of environmental, social, and economic knowledge to work toward solutions to problems in consideration of different time scales, geographic scales, and other factors.
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provides an example of the use of an approach for integrated risk and resilience assessments of climate change impacts within the Charleston Harbor Watershed of South Carolina. Another example of a systems approach could involve assessing, in the context of environmental justice and cumulative risk, complex environmental exposures in which multiple stressors can affect the residents of a specific community in disproportionate ways depending on the racial, economic, and other makeup of the communities.
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Reprinted with permission; copyright 2017, Environmental Health Perspectives. 7 See https://www.epa.gov/sustainability.
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ORD's National Research Programs (see Chapter 2) plan to integrate research efforts on six cross-cutting priorities: equity and environmental justice, climate change, cumulative impacts, community resiliency, children's environmental health, and contaminants of immediate and emerging concern.
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Challenges such as those we describe in the first part of this chapter -- assessing ecological and human risk holistically, assessing cumulative risk and environmental justice, and understanding the implications of climate change -- will require a new level of integration of research planning, and a new level of embedding 9 See https://www.usajobs.gov/job/690428300/print.
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ORD would strengthen future research by continuing to provide data to support regulatory decision-making, while simultaneously pivoting to a broader stakeholder model of research planning and implementation. The elements of this stakeholder model include: ● Developing engagement activities to inform research planning for a series of high-priority problem topics that EPA will confront presently and during the next 5-10 years.
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Strategic foresight assessments identify, track, analyze, and inform researchers and decision-makers of emerging risk incidents or clusters of an unusual aggregation of incidents in time and space that have the potential to be particularly disruptive to public health or the integrity of environmental systems or cause widespread economic and social dislocations. Analysis of current megatrend data and trends yields a growing awareness of the need for strategic foresight analysis as a major component of health and environmental research planning at EPA.
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FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS In this chapter, the committee has described three major challenges -- holistically addressing interconnected human health and ecological risks; characterizing and addressing environmental justice and cumulative risk; and anticipating and responding to the human health and environmental impacts of climate change -- which ORD will need to address in its efforts to develop, prioritize, and implement forward-looking science. We then describe a new, broader research framework -- applying systems thinking to a One Environment–One Health approach -- to guide how ORD organizes its efforts to be proactive and comprehensive in setting and implementing priorities.
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Simultaneously, ORD should build on its valuable StRAPs pro cess to adopt a broader, proactive stakeholder model of research planning and management than is used in its current development processes for StRAPs. Key elements of this stakeholder model include: ● Engagement activities with EPA program and regional offices and external stakeholders to identify high-priority research topics that EPA should address during the next 5-10 years.
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This may take the form, for example, of using structured machine learning tools to analyze large environmental, communication media, and societal databases to identify emerging issues of actual and perceived risk from certain pollutants before that concern fully emerges. Recommendation 3-4: At the mid-point in the period of each StRAP's existence, the relevant ORD national program director should establish a strategic foresight assessment team that evaluates emerging factors and trends, which may have an important bearing on EPA's decision-making for protecting human health and the environment.
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Environmental Health Perspectives 125:155-162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP515.
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2020. Freshwater harmful algal blooms: Causes, challenges, and policy considerations.
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2020. Climate change and harmful algal blooms: Insights and perspective.
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2017. Septic systems contribute to nutrient pollution and harmful algal blooms in the St.
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Redlines and greenspace: The rela tionship between historical redlining and 2010 greenspace across the United States. Environmental Health Perspectives 129(1)
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Environmental Health Perspectives 129(5)
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Environmental Health Perspectives 125:A41-A42. Sengul, H., N
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Environmental Health Perspectives 108(Suppl.
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2022. Human exposure to neonicotinoids and the associated health risks: A review.
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