‘One health’ champion takes helm of new SPHHP center

The newly appointed director of the School of Public Health and Health Professions’ newest center is all about “creating an incubator.” In such a space, she says, “collaborative teams of researchers who want to make an impact can work with policymakers and communities to address emerging climate and health equity challenges.” 

Kelly K. Baker, director of the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity (CCCHE), arrives at UB with a focus on transdisciplinary research and the “big picture questions” that always involve a team of people working on them.

With Baker at the helm, CCCHE will serve as a resource to UB, local community organizations, policymakers and global partners for climate and health research, education and policy initiatives. It will also provide strategic support for transdisciplinary initiatives with strong potential to improve climate resiliency and health outcomes for people experiencing vulnerability and communities in Western New York and globally.

Baker approaches her work through the lens of “one health,” which is a way of designing health programs that benefit humans, animals and the environment. One health recognizes the deep and complex connections among human, animal and environmental health, and aims to address health challenges at their intersection. At its core is “bringing different disciplines together to work productively,” Baker explains.

The project on which she’s been co-principal investigator for the past five years is exemplary of that approach. “Pathome” is a one-health study of a complex disease system, funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health Fogarty Institute. Through Pathome, Baker and an extremely multidisciplinary team aim to lay the scientific groundwork for practical, community-based policies that prevent early-childhood infectious diseases.

Pathome investigators are examining Kenya’s social development influence on the transmission of diseases spread by feces and, in the future, of respiratory diseases. Sixteen researchers, including a demographer, social scientist, climate scientist, biostatistics modeler, microbiologist and more, are building a virtual lab with information on neighborhood and household infrastructure — like toilets and stormwater drainage — as well as social behaviors and the animals that people live with.

They’re also collecting data on precipitation, humidity and temperature to see the role of seasonal influence on disease.

In this effort, the team works hand in hand with the African Population and Health Research Center and Maseno University in Kenya. (And Baker hopes to continue that relationship now that she’s at UB and getting ready to apply for funding for “Pathome II.”)

At the project’s close, Baker and her Kenyan and U.S. team will make evidence-based recommendations to Kenyan policymakers, nongovernmental organizations and communities about which interventions will be the best investments to help combat preventable infectious diseases.

Baker arrives at UB from the University of Iowa College of Public Health, where she was an associate professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health.

Her doctoral degree, in molecular microbiology and immunology, comes from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Her academic and research past has garnered her expertise in global health that will add to UB’s global research footprint: Baker has worked in the United States and 11 other countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Chili.

As an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Baker will teach a global health course beginning in the 2025-26 academic year.

“I’ll be including lots of student-led learning so students can demonstrate that they can use their knowledge in realistic case studies,” she says.

While the new Center for Climate Change and Health Equity ramps up its efforts, Baker will welcome several other researchers and enlist others at UB who can bring their particular expertise to bear on fulfilling the center’s mission, as well as establishing community partnerships.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the way Baker explains her vision for the center’s future underscores her way of working: “I have lots of ideas of what I would like to do, but much of it will be influenced by the other center researchers.”