This is a competitive contract solicitation to support the California Air Resources Board (CARB or Board) research priorities for fiscal year 2021-2022. CARB staff will hold a Pre-Application Workshop on April 8, 2021 for this and related projects. CARB is encouraging proposers to form multidisciplinary teams to fulfill contract requirements. Principle Investigators (PIs) must be affiliated with University of California and California State Universities, however, CARB encourages PIs to recruit non-academic research partners and diversify research efforts and talent.
CARB has launched an expanded health analysis project in response to Board resolution 17-46 to evaluate a broader range of health impacts than those routinely analyzed and monetized in the regulatory review process. Currently, CARB analyzes three specific health endpoints for PM2.5. However, emerging research findings provide evidence for additional air pollution-related health outcomes beyond what CARB currently quantifies. As part of our expanded health analysis project, the objective of this project is to provide a broader scientific basis for evaluation and quantification, where possible, of California-relevant associations between air pollutants (e.g. criteria pollutants, air toxics, and greenhouse gases) and additional health outcomes. Priority areas of interest include but are not limited to: nervous system effects (e.g. neurodegenerative disease, such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease, or learning impairments in children and young adults), and adverse birth outcomes (e.g. preterm birth, low birth weight, and decreased fetal growth). Additionally, results should help us better understand air pollution’s impacts on priority communities: how health impacts may be amplified due to proximity to pollution sources, and how socioeconomic and environmental factors increase community vulnerability. The project will identify concentration-response functions between air pollutants and a variety of health endpoints, monetized values (actual financial costs and/or valuations, such as willingness to pay) for those health impacts, and associated uncertainties or provide other ways to measure impacts and benefits of air pollution control efforts on health outcomes. The results of this project will allow for expanded evaluation and quantification of public health impacts and their associated economic values, as well as identification of potential qualitative outcomes. This will in turn promote better understanding of the full scope of health and welfare protections arising from air pollution reductions brought about by California’s programs and policies. Researchers should understand the equity implications of the research and data limitations due to potential for structural data collection or study bias. We encourage multidisciplinary teams and multi-university teams to apply.
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