As extreme heat endangers human health around the planet, Fabian is leading global, interdisciplinary work toward solutions.
By Alison Gold
Patricia Fabian is on track to set a personal record.
This year, she plans to participate in four official Climate Weeks hosted by major cities across the globe. These multi-day events unite policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers to catalyze local climate action. With Mumbai, Boston, and London Climate Weeks behind her, she’s looking toward Mexico City Climate Week and the United Nations climate negotiations in Turkey in the fall.
Fabian, a professor of environmental health who studies heat resilience, is increasingly bringing her community-led, transdisciplinary research approach to the world stage. Through various projects, including a $3.2-million Climate Impact Award from Wellcome, a global foundation, she is driving high-impact research and opening new lines for international dialogue on promising climate solutions.
“At these climate convenings, I’m sharing the learnings from our research at Boston University and seeking to expand partnerships globally,” Fabian says. “Global impact starts with local impact. Community leaders across the world have been forced to take urgent action to protect residents from extreme heat. Now, we need to open doors to knowledge sharing between communities and elevate local resiliency solutions on a global scale. To protect each other, we need to learn from each other.”
We talked to Fabian about interdisciplinary collaboration, her local-to-global approach, the impacts of climate on health, and what’s next for her teams.
Q&A with Patricia Fabian
Tell us about your work with Wellcome and how it supports human health.
With the support of Wellcome, which is based in the United Kingdom, we launched the Community Adaptations to City Heat, or CATCH, project. One of our goals is to make heat health impacts visible. In other words, studying and helping raise broader awareness of how heat can affect health outcomes like pregnancy, fertility, domestic violence, learning in schools, asthma and respiratory disease, and cardiovascular disease.
The second goal is to make solutions visible. There are many ways local leaders are protecting their residents from extreme heat. Some have brought on Chief Heat Officers to coordinate heat responses across departments and invested in new cooling technology. Others have passed indoor temperature ordinances for renters or made cooling energy affordable. Different solutions work best in different contexts. There’s a huge umbrella of solutions that could fall under housing policy, energy affordability, clean energy, and more. We’re examining the work happening in Boston, Phoenix, and New Orleans, three cities each approaching heat differently.
You’re aiming to make impacts and solutions more visible. What does that look like in practice?
We published a large policy and heat action database that has been downloaded by researchers globally. And we created several tools, like an epidemiology-based heat health tool. We established a partnership with Dialogue Earth, a climate journalism organization sharing stories of resilience and cooling from all around the world. They’ve covered extreme heat during elections in India, cooling strategies in schools in Argentina, climate shelters in Barcelona, and more. The idea is that there are diverse efforts underway all over the world, and we are helping cities learn from each other.
We hope to keep branching out and working in new areas. I’m particularly interested in leveraging all the resources, tools, and knowledge from the CATCH project and bringing our work to cities in the Global South. Wellcome recently convened a workshop in Kenya on biomonitoring, which involves using sensors to measure the impact of heat on health by tracking physiological markers like heart rate and stress. A member of the research team attended that meeting to learn about potentially partnering with companies developing sensors that could be really helpful in this work.
“The idea is that there are diverse efforts underway all over the world, and we are helping cities learn from each other.”
– Patricia Fabian
Many of your teams are highly transdisciplinary. What is the benefit of bringing diverse expertise together?
Complex problems require different voices and ideas at the solutions table. If we manage to bring everybody together, the solutions are more impactful and implementable. Having partnerships with other researchers, cities, nonprofits, and community-based organizations helps us create well-rounded solutions.
Our CELT Initiative, a partnership with Governor Healey’s administration to support the state’s energy transition, is led by faculty in public health, engineering, and Earth & environment. The work with Boston Public Schools brings together school district staff and teachers with researchers from epidemiology, math and statistics, data science, and environmental health. On CATCH, we have BU experts in community engagement, heat epidemiology, the impact of trees on heat, systems science modeling, building simulation, housing policy, and energy affordability policy. We also partner with lots of community-based organizations and staff from cities across the U.S.
“Complex problems require different voices and ideas at the solutions table. If we manage to bring everybody together, the solutions are more impactful and implementable.”
– Patricia Fabian
How has your work on indoor air influenced international environmental priorities?
Our partnership with Boston Public Schools on indoor air has had national and international reach. This work grew out of COVID, when many schools started monitoring indoor air. Our team has led pioneering data analysis to boost classroom air quality and improve learning. In 2022, we were invited to the White House for a Clean Air and Building Summit to start moving policy around indoor air standards. There’s no regulation for indoor air standards in the US, despite people spending 90% of their time indoors.
Since the White House meeting, we’ve worked with the Center for Green Schools, the EPA Indoor Environments Division, and others to ensure our findings are relevant for policy opportunities. Last year, our work with Boston Public Schools was lifted up as an example for sustainable schools and clean indoor air at Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action, a major high-level side event held during the UN General Assembly.
Our work with Boston Public Schools is an example of not just doing research, but connecting with organizations and communities that are most interested and affected. City leadership recognizing the impact of our efforts is often the most rewarding, which was why this year’s Boston Climate Leader Award from Mayor Michelle Wu meant a great deal.
Content has been edited for length and clarity.