The Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control (SCDC), as coordinator of a broad Chinese partnership, and Sequoia Foundation (SF) along with CA Department of Public Health (CDPH), as coordinators of a broad technical support team, request funds to plan a Regional China Global Environmental and Occupational (GEO) Health Hub. The Hub will build capacity for environmental and occupation health research, training and policy development associated with climate change, water quality and worker health and safety. It will play a leadership role in a global network of hubs devoted to increasing knowledge broadly of environmental and occupational health and improving conditions around the world. The planning team will: 1) discuss overarching needs of vision, leadership development and policy translation for a successful hub;2) conduct a needs and opportunities assessment of China's environmental and occupational problems and policy environment and the resources available to address them;3) plan and structure a Regional China GEO Health Hub;4) develop research hypotheses and data sources for the three focal areas;5) identify activities that will build sustainable research capacity;and 6) evaluate the planning process while developing an evaluation plan. The Regional China GEO Health Hub will be a center for a wide range of experts in epidemiology, biostatistics, genetics, environmental science, industrial hygiene, occupational health, systems science, toxicology, behavioral science, implementation science, research and policy leadership development, evidence-based design and community planning and development. Experts will be selected to address the three focal areas (climate change, water quality and worker health) and will be able to collaborate with a rich network of colleagues from California and other institutions from around the world. The anticipated results will be greater investment in Chinese environmental and occupational health research, stronger scholarship as reflected in more and higher quality publications, sound regional and national policies that are influenced by the Hub, and leadership capacity to carry these results into the future.
China is ready to develop strong research programs. Creating a GEO Health Hub in China will build capacity for environmental and occupational health research that cannot be done elsewhere. It will result in leadership and shared knowledge in policy development that will benefit this partnership and the rest of the world. The proposed planning process will assure that the Hub will be supported, effective and sustained.
