Addressing Critical Threats to Health: Climate Change, Infectious Disease, and Mistrust in Science

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) is committed to anticipating and addressing the most critical threats to human health at the population level.

A primary goal in the NAM’s 2025-2029 strategic plan is to “lead, inspire, and catalyze evidence-informed action on urgent, critical issues and long-term societal challenges to health.” These issues include climate change, infectious disease – particularly antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – and mistrust in science.

Climate change threatens health by intensifying extreme weather events, worsening air quality, increasing food and water insecurity, and disrupting health care systems.

The increasing prevalence of pathogens demonstrating AMR threatens to render ineffective bedrock treatments for many common conditions, with the potential for massive morbidity and mortality.

Finally, mistrust in science and evidence-based health information, fueled in part by mis- and disinformation, may undermine adherence to medical interventions such as vaccination, thereby hampering public health efforts and leading to the resurgence of preventable diseases.

The NAM requests funding from the Wellcome Trust in the amount of £600,000/USD $750,000 to partially support select activities across climate change, AMR, and trust in science – and enable its rapid and flexible response to emergent developments in these three high-priority areas from September 2024 through February 2026.