Context

In France, climate-environment-health research is under-developed because the existing scientific potential remains dispersed. Physicists, climate specialists, meteorologists, physicians, biologists and epidemiologists interested in this area still lack a common culture under which relevant interdisciplinary projects could flourish. 

Objectives

In this context, the SARCES project was initiated to:
• Provide researchers from different disciplines with a body of information on the known or predicted impacts of environmental change on health. Past and current research on the subject would also be included, as well as the methodological approaches.
• Help clinical departments and laboratories to structure their research on the climate-environment-health theme, enabling them to respond to the various calls for projects with high-quality proposals;
• Encourage researchers from the different disciplines (health, physics, climatology) to make an inventory of the existing models and databases, and to evaluate those that could serve as a basis for future interdisciplinary research projects.
• Strengthen collaboration between the clinical research units of the Paris Île-de-France Ouest medical training and research facility (UFR PIFO) and the other consortium laboratories working in climatology, ecology, economics, and human and social sciences.

Initiatives

1) Meetings between the project coordinators and the clinical research laboratories at the UFR PIFO: these meetings aim to familiarise physicians with the issues in climate-environment-health research and to explore new research subjects involving several scientific disciplines.

2) Participative coordination through regular additions to a specific page on the consortium website (in French):
- Scientific monitoring on the climate-environment-health theme, summaries/abstracts based on the literature, conferences, and reports.
- Relevant calls for projects and scientific events posted online.

Click to visit this specific page :

3) Seminars bringing together health, climate and environment teams to share information and develop a common body of knowledge. The project coordinators play a key role in organising scientific events on this theme, as part of the SIROP (Séminaire Interdisciplinaire de Recherche de L'Ouest Parisien) seminars.
French and foreign researchers are invited to participate.

4) Assistance to the coordinators of projects funded by the consortium, especially with methodology and data analysis.

5) Assistance to teams responding to calls for projects.