Center faculty participated in Open Buffalo’s 3rd Annual Eco Justice Block Party. We were excited to make community connections and highlight work being done around climate and health.

Center Director Dr. Kelly Baker presented on her work at the 9th World One Health Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Mark Janko, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health and core faculty member of the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity, together with PhD student Qianhui Zheng, participated in the Amazon Research Consortium (ARC) Workshop, hosted by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The two-day workshop convened a diverse group of experts and stakeholders from across the Americas, with representation spanning Indigenous and local communities, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions. Discussions addressed the interconnected challenges facing the Amazon, including social-ecological change and critical environmental thresholds, emerging health risks associated with land-use and climate change, the role of Indigenous and local knowledge systems in building resilience, pathways toward sustainable and equitable development, and translating scientific knowledge into policy and action. The workshop also advanced plans for an ARC Community of Practice and a collaborative research and policy agenda designed to bridge scientific expertise with local knowledge and decision-making. Dr. Janko is one of the founding principal investigators of the ARC, a transdisciplinary consortium bringing together scientists, Indigenous and local communities, policymakers, and other stakeholders to address interconnected environmental, social, economic, and health challenges across the Amazon.

The Hydration, Exercise, and Thermoregulation (HEAT) Lab received their first R01 from NIOSH/CDC, a 4-year, $2.4 million grant. Older package delivery drivers are at risk of heat illness and cardiovascular events, and implementing a protective work pacing strategy could prevent morbidity and mortality.  Some employers suggest that workers should self-pace their deliveries, and upon delivering all packages they can return home.  This creates an external influence of increasing work speed to return home sooner, potentially contributing to negative health consequences.  Their project is determining effective work pacing strategies to keep package delivery drivers healthy during hot weather.  In addition to challenging the idea that workers should increase their delivery speed to return home, they are testing two additional pacing work structures to see whether one if more protective for middle-aged workers across consecutive workdays in the heat.

Ellie Madson, MPH represented the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity this summer by teaching multiple hands-on workshops for UB BluePath, UB STEP, and students from the Niagara Falls High School Early College program.  Over 60 students toured the CCCHE microbiology lab and learned to perform water quality testing experiments.

Center faculty, affiliate faculty, and staff collaborated to publish Stronger evidence, weaker protections: planetary health consequences of rescinding the US Environmental Protection Agency endangerment finding in The Lancet Planetary Health.

Ellie Madson represented the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity (CCCHE) New York State Public Health Association (NYSPHA) 2026 Annual Conference in Lake Placid, New York. The conference was attended by public health educators, academic staff, county health employees, students, and health practitioners from across the state of New York.

Ellie Madson represented the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity (CCCHE) at the Western New York Environmental Alliance (WNYEA) Annual Congress meeting in April. The WNYEA brings together academics, community members, and community organizations to promote environmental health, justice, and education. Information about the Annual Congress can be found at https://www.wnyea.org/2026-congress.html.

“Climate Change and Emerging Contaminants: Risks and Responses in Asia and Beyond” was a two-day event held in April 2026. The first day centered around speeches and discussion in the Screening Room of the Center for the Arts. The conference was organized by UB’s Asia Research Institute, RENEW Institute, Office of Global Health Initiatives and the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity.

CCCHE Faculty Dr. Josh Miller presented in the session "Addressing the Impacts of Water Scarcity and Environmental Justice" about his ongoing work on the intersections of WASH and Filipino youth. 

Fieldwork for Dr. Mark Janko's NIH grant "Effectively Linking Molecular Informatics and Network Analytics to Reduce Malaria (ELIMINAR Malaria)" began in March. The study seeks to understand how climate and environmental variability shapes human mobility and the diffusion of malaria and other infectious diseases in the river corridors that comprise the northern Amazon. The study is done in partnership with local institutions and indigenous communities in Peru.

In March, Dr. Josh Miller travelled to Cagayan de Oro, Philippines to meet with study collaborators, share findings with UNICEF country leads, and present “Water Insecurity and Adolescent Health in the Philippines: findings from the Longitudinal Cohort Study of the Filipino Child (LCSFC)” at the Philippine Population Association.

Dr. Kristen Cowan joined the 2026 Fellows for the Enabling Program. This NSF-funded program at the Natural Hazards Center gives early career researchers the opportunity to develop their hazards and disaster research. 

Ellie Madson was a co-author for the Climate Change, Drinking Water Security, and Public Health textbook published by Springer Nature. Madson co-authored the chapter titled "Climate Change, Drinking Water, and Public Health: An Integrated Review." Her portion of the chapter focused on how the changing climate is impacting the world of microbes. She explained the different types of diseases humans can contract from water, emerging and reemerging diseases, and One Health dynamics. 

Dr. Shelby Yamamoto, Dr. Kristen Cowan, and Ellie Madson represented the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity at the University at Buffalo's Science Exploration Day. High School students from around the Western New York area were invited to UB's North Campus to explore various career and/or degree paths. The Center allowed students to be "disease detectives" by participating in an activity that centered around heat exposure and health disparities. Students had to determine which neighborhoods were being disproportionately impacted and why. The activity ended by educating them on different intervention initiatives and allowing them to see what it is to be a climate epidemiologist. 

Dr. Cowan presented findings from her dissertation work titled “Wildfire smoke exposure and risk of hospitalization among people who are incarcerated in California and Oregon” at the Climate Cafe Research Coordinating Center event called “Wildfires and Health: From Research to Resilience” on November 19th. This half-day event was the second installment in their Extreme Weather half-day event series focusing on wildfires and public health. Dr. Cowan presented in a session focused on health impacts from wildfires, other speakers in this session spoke about topics including wildland-urban interface fires, birth outcomes associated with wildfire exposure and stroke risk associated with long-term wildfire smoke. To learn more about CAFE and look for other upcoming events visit their website https://www.climatehealthcafe.org/. 

Ellie Madson, laboratory manager and project coordinator for CCCHE Director Kelly Baker, represented CCCHE at the 2025 American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC (November 2–5). On November 4, she delivered a 15-minute talk as part of the session, Climate Change, Water, and Health. Her presentation, Temporal Changes in Microbial Composition of Private Well Water During Times of Drought and Flood in Iowa, highlighted her graduate research with Dr. Kelly Baker examining how climate-driven drought and flooding events may alter the microbial communities in private well water—an issue with significant implications for water safety and public health.

On October 30, 2025, Dr. Kristen Cowen and Ellie Madson represented the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity (CCCHE) at the STEM Research Opportunity Fair hosted by WiSE and CSTEP. They engaged with undergraduate and graduate students interested in exploring research projects and collaborations in the climate and health field. The event offered a valuable opportunity to explain how climate issues intersect with disciplines across STEM, helping students identify meaningful ways to apply their studies to climate and health challenges.

From September 17-19, more than 50 researchers, government officials, development partners, practitioners and community leaders from 15 countries convened to launch the FoodWISE Asia Pacific network – a community of practice dedicated to expanding the use of experiential tools to better understand how people acquire and use food and water, and to apply this knowledge to develop and advocate for strategies that promote equitable access to these essential resources.

The program included welcoming remarks, presentations and working sessions, as well as a full day focused on preparing scientific manuscripts and policy briefs. Discussions underscored the urgent need to address food and water challenges in the Asia Pacific region, particularly in the context of ongoing climate change. Aboriginal community members shared how the WISE Scales have enabled them to document local water issues and mobilize political will for action, after years of evidence on high salinity levels had failed to drive change.

Dr. Joshua Miller presented on ongoing work to develop tools for measuring the accessibility and adequacy of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in schools and healthcare facilities. Following the meeting, he has been in contact with UNICEF, WaterAid and other groups interested in piloting the tools to strengthen their monitoring and evaluation efforts.

He also contributed to a presentation from the nationally representative Longitudinal Cohort Study of the Filipino Child, showing that reliance on refilling stations for drinking water has more than doubled over the past decade among households with adolescents. Despite 98% of households reporting use of an “improved” water source (per WHO standards), about one in four experienced water insecurity, based on the experiential water insecurity scale his colleagues and he developed. These findings underscore the need to complement supply-side indicators with experiential measures to more comprehensively assess whether people are able to access and benefit from available water services.

Ellie Madson, laboratory manager and project coordinator for CCCHE Director Kelly Baker,  represented the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity this year during Blue Path. She spent time with high schoolers interested in the health professions, talking about her journey to UB and giving them some hands-on lab experience!