Acronym: PLANET4Health
Title: Translating Science into Policy: A Multisectoral Approach to Adaptation and Mitigation of Adverse Effects of
Vector-Borne Diseases, Environmental Pollution and Climate Change on Planetary Health
Call: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-ENVHLTH-02
EU nr: 101136652
Period: 48 months 1/1/2024-31/12/2027
Budget : Total budget: €5,925,130.00 ; VUB: €210,000.00
Contact: Prof. Dr. Paul Quinn
PI's webpage: https://researchportal.vub.be/en/persons/paul-quinn
https://planet4health.eu/
At ERIS we got a chance to interview Paul and ask him 2 questions: ‘What is PLANET4Health about?’ and ‘Why is PLANET4Health important for VUB?’
WHAT IS PLANET4HEALTH ABOUT?
Paul: "The IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6) states that climate-related illnesses, premature deaths, malnutrition in all its forms, and threats to mental health and wellbeing are increasing. Moreover, in addition to a climate change-related approach, the Planetary Health Alliance remarks that “understanding the links between the Anthropocene and Health requires a social and ecological approach to health promotion and disease prevention and control, ranging from individual to population level determinants of human, animal, and ecosystem health”.
This is precisely what PLANET4health will be doing. PLANET4Health’s aims to put challenges encountered by researchers and innovators in the perspective of OneHealth . Hereto, using a different approach and methodology by considering the issues and problems within ‘the environmental and climate context’.
Paul, can you elaborate a bit more on the challenges?
The major challenges the researchers are confronted with are for instance the effects of unsustainable human activities, such as deforestation, ecosystem degradation, depletion and loss of biodiversity. Economies that are reliant on fossil fuels are majorly contributing to water insecurity and loss of food safety, to air pollution, and contamination of land and water, oceans included. Together with social and economic factors such as access to water and affordable food, income and livelihoods, or multiple other socio-economic pathways, these are further intensifying the environmental and climate change emergency, including their indirect and direct effects on OneHealth. Likewise, many of these issues are already highlighted by the EC in different strategic documents, e.g. ‘deliver on people’s legitimate aspirations to have their health, environment and livelihoods protected’.”
So what is the action plan of PLANET4health?
“PLANET4health will develop collaborations from a large variety of fields including environmental and climate sciences, public health, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, social, political and economic sciences, engineering, law and ethics, and communication, to facilitate learning and practice in the health and environment intersection. It will use these collaborations in ‘tailor made’ case studies.
It is also in this spirit that PLANET4Health project seeks to extend and scale up its objective outcomes and best practices into policy recommendation for sustainable adaptation to and mitigation of OneHealth impacts of environmental degradation and climate change. “
WHY IS PLANET4HEALTH IMPORTANT FOR THE VUB?
Paul: “The VUB partner will be involved in many WPs but more specifically in: Data Protection Compliance, Data Management Plan (DMP), and IPR management strategy, Ethics Compliance and Dissemination and Communication of PLANET4HEALTH.
The proper data management practices will facilitate PLANET4HEALTH project's outcomes compliance with relevant legal frameworks including the GDPR. The DMP will also describe the intellectual property (IP) generated by the project and provide an overview of the relevant intellectual property rights (IPR) and how IP will be protected and/or used. VUB will maintain and update the DMP during the lifespan of the project.
The VUB has also an extensive experience in ensuring the Ethics Compliance on EU-funded research projects. The VUB will also address any Ethics requirements the project might receive following the initial Ethics Evaluation. Addressing the EC Ethics Appraisal Process, will be in translating the Ethics requirements into actionable items for the consortium partners of PLANET4HEALTH to understand, implement and comply with. All consortium partners in general and technical partners in particular must guarantee that they are adopting a responsible research and innovation attitude when designing and developing the project outcomes.
Finally, the VUB will also be involved in the dissemination and communication of PLANET4HEALTH. The VUB will organise in scope of their Symposium in Brussels a dedicated PLANET4Health event under a specific topic e.g. “Plan for planetary health” as one of the important strategic mechanisms to provide interactive communication with stakeholders at the regional, international, and European levels.
PLANET4Health will participate in relevant events, including Global Health and Innovation Conference, United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP), Sustainable Brands Conference. Thus, stay tuned for updates on all upcoming events.”
AIM
PLANET4Health provides new knowledge and tools on environment degradation and its impact on human animal and ecosystems health. The project results will support policy making process and citizens awareness on sustainable planetary health, climate and environmental policies and adaptation and mitigation strategies to natural hazards.
PLANET4health will develop collaborations from a large variety of organizations from the: environmental and climate science, public health, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, social, political and economic science, engineering, law and ethics, and communication, to produce solid knowledge and tools to facilitate learning and practice on the interaction between the natural system and human health.
METHODOLOGY & IMPACT
4 tailor-made case studies will be performed:
1) ‘One Health’ effects of vector-borne diseases,
2) air pollution,
3) food contamination arising from soil and water contamination,
4) mental wellbeing linked to environmental and climate stressors,
in different geographical area thanks to the large project network, that will draw universal conclusions and replicable solutions to improve the predictive capability and preparedness.
The consortium will produce research, technological innovation, tailored outreach and training, and policy solutions through a cross sectorial multidisciplinary scientific collaboration in line with the transnational character of planetary health.
For these aims the project will:
a) collect, organize and assure open availability of new and already existing data on climate and environmental indicators linked to One Health;
b) carry out analyses on data and build innovative, inter-operable and multifunctional digital prototypes;
c) produce new knowledge and tools to support One Health policies by applying social science theories and involving citizens, policymakers and stakeholders;
d) offer open-access data, tools and research material to public authorities for decision making and academic research for further study.