Translation of Scientific Knowledge into Policy and Action - Global Observatory on Planetary Health

Impact
1. Production of New Scientific Knowledge
2. Translation of Scientific Knowledge into Policy and Action

The second component of the Observatory’s mission is to communicate our scientific findings to policy makers and the public:

Air Pollution

To further disseminate the findings from our study of climate-driven air pollution in Massachusetts and make them available to policy makers and the public, we have, as noted above, built a publicly accessible website: www.bc.edu/masscleanair, which is hosted on a server at Boston College.

COVID-19

We gave more than 100 interviews to local, national and international press outlets on the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic with a particular focus on the social and racial inequities that the pandemic has exposed. These media outlets include The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Lancet, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg, and MSNBC. This work has burnished Boston College’s reputation as a source of highly credible, well-curated information on the pandemic and its control.

Weymouth Compressor Station

We are deeply committed to supporting a grassroots campaign in North Weymouth, Massachusetts to block construction of a natural gas compressor station in an environmental justice community. In partnership with Boston College University Communications, we convened a press conference on campus in May 2019 opposing the compressor station, citing the dangers it will pose to public health and its affront to the principles of social justice

Climate Change and Lead Poisoning

We have made public presentations to community groups in disadvantaged communities in Brockton, Dorchester, Lynn and Chelsea, Massachusetts on the health impacts of climate change and the prevention of childhood lead poisoning.

International Conferences

To showcase our dual strengths at Boston College in Global Public Health and Moral Philosophy, the Observatory has convened two international conferences in partnership with the Theology Department. These highly publicized and well attended conferences have examined current topics in Global Theological Ethics. They have brought in speakers from around the world. Their goal has been to expand the field of bioethics beyond