Using NASA Earth Observations to Strengthen Environmental Health Surveillance

The triple planetary crisis (climate change, pollution and waste, nature and biodiversity loss), along with concurrent global challenges related to health workforce shortages, shifting demographics, and economic hardships, leads the forefront of global discussions on climate action. Global reports, such as the World Health Organization’s Global Vector Control Response (2017-2030), World Meteorological Organization’s State of Climate Services, and the Quadripartite organization’s One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022-2026), offer guidance for policy and health leaders in building climate action plans that protect population health. One element of these guidance documents includes the need for robust data integration with satellite and in situ observations that offer high-resolution spatial and temporal parameters to better understand how natural and anthropogenic phenomena impact the changing Earth’s systems. In this presentation, we will describe how the One Health concept (human-animal-environmental nexus) can promote multidisciplinary and multisectoral collaborations that incorporate diverse datasets (including NASA Earth observations) to closely examine pressing environmental health risks. These cross-cutting scientific applications can provide real-time information on the public health burden to policy and health leaders, which can strengthen environmental health surveillance and other decision-making activities.