From left: Kerri Sands, Anna Staddon, and John Lambert. Photo by Megan Jones

epidemiology

Center for Climate and Health Sponsors Student Practicums

Anna Staddon, Kerri Sands, and John Lambert, on-campus MPH students, received support from the Center for Climate and Health to complete summer practicums conducting research to better understand and minimize the effects of climate change on human health.

Since launching in 2022, the Center for Climate and Health (CCH) has rolled out a suite of programs and initiatives in support of its mission to foster a vibrant community of researchers dedicated to documenting the effects of climate change on human health. This past summer, one such initiative provided funding to three on-campus MPH students, John Lambert, Kerri Sands, and Anna Staddon, to support their practicum work at the nexus of climate and health.

On track to earn functional certificates in epidemiology and biostatistics, Lambert, Sands, and Staddon all found roles that allowed them to apply their analytical skills to climate-related public health challenges. For his summer practicum, Lambert’s love of nature led him to successfully apply for the Bailey Research Fellowship that enabled him to conduct field research in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). Back in Boston, Sands and Staddon served as a graduate research assistants at SPH, Sands on the Pregnancy Study Online (PRESTO) in the Department of Epidemiology and Staddon in the Spatial and Public Health Equity Research (SPHERE) Lab under Marcia Pescador Jimenez, assistant professor of epidemiology.

Gregory Wellenius, professor of environmental health and the director of the Center for Climate and Health, says the Center was delighted to be able to support the practicum experience of three top MPH students. “Support from the Center not only fostered new collaborations between students and faculty members, but also helped advance the careers of the next generation of climate and health experts,” he says.

Lambert, who holds a bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Northeastern University, studied trends in search-and-rescue incidents while living and working in RMNP. He spent most days on trails collecting survey responses from park visitors. A highlight of the experience, he says, was being able to personally respond to search-and-rescue incidents and help people directly. In the future, he plans to apply his public health expertise to contain infectious disease outbreaks. He is particularly passionate about One Health, an approach to public health that emphasizes the links between humans, animals, and the environment. “Everything is connected,” he says.

For Sands, a typical day on the job involved conducting data analyses on large datasets. She is especially proud of the work she did to analyze the relationship between heat exposure and fertility outcomes using data from PRESTO, a web-based, preconception cohort study—the largest of its kind worldwide—that follows thousands of individuals ages 21-45 who are trying to conceive. In addition to her number crunching and coding, she also collaborated with Kari Radoff, a nurse midwife at Boston Medical Center (BMC), to create content on climate change and extreme heat for BMC’s Hey Mama! webpage, which provides guidance to pregnant and postpartum patients to promote their health and that of their babies before and after birth. The content Sands helped add highlights helpful resources around the City of Boston, such as cooling centers, pop-up cooling tents, pools, and misting spray stations.

“Participating in this research and contributing to the understanding of how climate change impacts reproductive health has been incredibly meaningful to me,” says Sands. The experience solidified her intent after completing her MPH to pursue a PhD in environmental and reproductive epidemiology with a focus on the effects of environmental exposures on fertility.

Staddon’s work with the SPHERE Lab, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the U.S. and Mexico working to uncover associations between the built and natural environments and cognitive health, contributed to novel research aiming to quantify the association between exposure to greenery, such as parks, and trajectory of cognitive decline in older adults. Using the SAS and R programming languages, she helped to build a longitudinal dataset that would support this investigation. The process was challenging but rewarding, she says. “I was drawn to public health because it offers the tools to develop solutions to these challenges. Additionally, as an aspiring physician I felt it was particularly important for me to be understanding of public health concepts to better serve patients.”

The Center for Climate and Health expects to issue a new call for proposals for funding of MPH practica related to climate and health in the new year.