Documenting Economic and Societal Benefits of Environmental Health Research
The ask: The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund Research Program (SRP) wanted to document tangible benefits of research coming out of their program.
The solution: MDB assembled a multidisciplinary team and worked with public health and environmental economists and SRP grantees to assess the quantitative and qualitative impacts of SRP-funded remediation and detection technologies and basic biomedical research.
MDB and SRP staff wrote two commentaries outlining this project and its outcomes, highlighting the societal, economic, and public health benefits of SRP investments. For each paper, we developed and proposed a framework, identified relevant case studies, compiled background information, pulled patents, and analyzed publications.
The first study documented how SRP-funded research achieves significant health care savings by reducing the potential for human exposures to hazardous waste. We also showed how SRP projects spur small business development and discoveries in fields beyond environmental health.
In the second study, we used a case study to illustrate how SRP projects have led to health-protective policies, as well as additional clinical, public health, and economic benefits. Using bibliometric analysis of SRP publications from 1995-2018, we also analyzed how SRP has contributed to the advancement of knowledge within the field of environmental health and beyond.
Notable outcomes: We published the papers in two peer-reviewed journals: Environmental Health Perspectives and Reviews on Environmental Health.
