Multidisciplinary Approaches for Environmentally-Informed Public Health Diagnostics.

We invite academic partners, public health agencies, and organizations from the European Union to co-develop a standardized methodological framework that allows diagnosing public health problems from a comprehensive perspective sensitive to the environmental context. Our initiative seeks to categorize, validate, and formalize multidisciplinary approaches proven in the field, to create replicable tools that accelerate the identification of the environmental determinants of health in diverse communities.

OUR APPROACH AND VALUE ADDED:

We have extensive experience in conducting comprehensive studies that systematically combine the perspectives of social sciences (medical anthropology, sociology, public administration), environmental sciences (environmental epidemiology, geochemistry), and clinical and community health sciences. This approach allows us to diagnose public health problems not as isolated phenomena, but as the result of complex interactions between ecological, socioeconomic, and cultural factors at the territorial level. We have teams specialized in territorial engagement using ethnographic and participatory methodologies, and partner organizations capable of designing and implementing robust systems to collect, integrate, and systematize the analysis of heterogeneous information. This data flow ranges from qualitative community perceptions to quantitative measurements of pollutants and health records, and can be optimally integrated with localized information generated by community digital transformation nodes.

EXPECTED RESULT AND NEED FOR COOPERATION:

The final objective is to produce standardized diagnostic tools and methodological kits that allow diverse regions to quickly and accurately identify the environmental determinants of their health problems, facilitating the design of more effective and culturally appropriate interventions. To achieve this standardization with international validity, we require European partners who contribute with:

• Experience in coding and validating complex methodological frameworks for public health and environmental research.

• Knowledge in the development of open standards for the integration and analysis of heterogeneous socio-environmental and health data.

• Capacity to scale and transfer participatory action-research methodologies to different geographical and cultural contexts.

• Interest and capacity for co-submission to international funding calls, particularly those aligned with Horizon Europe Cluster 1 (Health), Cluster 6 (Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment) and Cluster 2 (Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society), as well as global health cooperation programs.

PROFILE OF THE EUROPEAN PARTNER SOUGHT:

We seek academic institutions of excellence, public health institutes, environmental protection agencies, or non-governmental organizations with demonstrable experience in transdisciplinary research projects linking health and the environment. We especially value partners with expertise in creating standardized tools and protocols, in implementation science, and with a genuine interest in codifying and scaling integrated methodologies for planetary and community health, ensuring their relevance and applicability in Global South contexts.

This collaboration represents a strategic opportunity to generate a global public good: a robust methodological framework that transforms the diagnosis of environmental public health, enabling more precise, preventive, and locally-rooted interventions.