NEXUS MPI Rima Habre, ScD, University of Southern California, visited the city of Ahmedabad, India in February 2025 as a guest at the Indo-US Conference on Climate Change Impacts on Occupational and Environmental Health ( CliCON OEH2025). The conference was hosted by the Indian Council on Medical Research National Institute of Occupational Health ( ICMR-NIOH) under the patronage of Rajiv Bahl, PhD, Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR), chaired by Santasabuj Das, PhD, Director, ICMR-NIOH, and Organizing Secretary Ankit Sheth, PhD, ICMR-NIOH.
The meeting convened leaders and researchers from India and the United States around the need to increase global coordination and collaboration to understand the health challenges posed by rising temperatures, extreme weather events, heat stress, and vector-borne diseases especially for workers and occupational groups.
In her plenary entitled “ Risk, Adaptation, and Resilience for Health and Well-being in Response to Climate Change,” Dr. Habre discussed geospatial and measurement approaches to assessing climate-related exposures and vulnerability factors, especially the use of geospatial data, remote sensing data, machine learning models, and personal monitoring. She presented a vision for increased transdisciplinary science education, research training, and global collaboration through NEXUS given the urgency and multifaceted nature of environmental chemicals and hazards experienced by populations worldwide, and using the recent Los Angeles wildfires as an example.
Additionally, Dr. Habre participated in a panel discussion entitled “Way Forward for Interdisciplinary Research to Combat Climate Change Impacts on Occupational Health,” thought leaders Prabhakaran D, PhD, from the Center for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC); Shyam Pingle, PhD, Occupational Health Specialist; Santasabuj Das, PhD, from ICMR-NIOH; Rajnarayan Tiwari, PhD, from the Indian Council of Medical Research - National Institute for Research in Environmental Health (ICMR-NIREH), and Vikas Kapil, PhD, from Emory University.
This panel discussed the need for breaking knowledge domes, increasing global data representation and access, and co-creation and co-learning to catalyze global scientific partnerships.
Overall, the need for increased global cooperation in methods and data harmonization, and in training the next generation of scientists in the latest data science tools and technologies was raised; however, the importance of incorporating local culture, knowledge, and context into studies in different counties was highlighted by all panelists.
The CliCON OEH2025 conference promoted connections between many scientific leaders with large cohorts that have started to or are interested in incorporating exposomics into their research!