Fogarty conducted a process review of the Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) program to analyze the program's implementation, identify near-term outputs, and make recommendations for future improvements.
The GEOHealth program, launched in 2012, supports the development of institutions in low- or middle-income countries (LMICs) serving as regional hubs for collaborative research, data management, training, curriculum and outreach material development, and policy support around high-priority local, national and regional environmental and occupational health threats. GEOHealth Hubs were supported by two linked awards to an LMIC institution for research and to a U.S. institution to coordinate research training.
Results of the Evaluation
The Fogarty Division of International Science Policy, Planning and Evaluation (DISPPE) conducted the process evaluation in early 2019. The review looks at the first five years of the GEOHealth program, which supported seven GEOHealth hubs. Each hub was supported by two linked cooperative agreement awards: a research award (U01) to the LMIC institution, and a research training award (U2R) to a U.S. institution. Together, the hubs addressed seven research areas: outdoor air pollution, household air pollution, agricultural health, environmental contamination, electronic waste, climate change and industrialization. Highlights include:
- At the time of the evaluation, the program had trained 118 people from 12 countries around the world.
- Cohorts included clinicians and public health professionals, medical students and undergraduates from academia, government and NGOs.
- Hubs used their collaborations to launch new graduate programs thereby building institutional capacity.
- Of the 32 articles published at the time of the evaluation, more than one third included trainees as authors.
- The hubs developed new partnerships with research institutions, government ministries and NGOs, focusing on a range of activities such as collecting data and identifying, disseminating and commenting on policies related to environmental health.
Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) Program Partners
Fogarty developed GEOHealth in collaboration with:
- National Cancer Institute (NCI) at NIH
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) at NIH
- National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- International Development Research Centre (IDRC) , Canada
The Clean Cooking Alliance (formerly the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves) supported supplemental funding for research and training focused on household air pollution.
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Updated March 2021
Related News
- Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) hubs train researchers, help address regional priorities
May / Jun 2019 Global Health Matters - Funding concept: Hubs of Interdisciplinary Research and Training in Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth)
- Notices of Intent to Publish FOAs for Hubs of Interdisciplinary Research and Training in Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth):
- GEOHealth Research (U01) (NOT-TW-20-002)
- GEOHealth Research Training (U2R) (NOT-TW-20-003)