Placement: Northeastern University
Co-Mentors: Matthew Eckelman, PhD, MS, MPhil, Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Affiliated Faculty, Chemical Engineering; Affiliated Faculty, Marine and Environmental Sciences; Affiliated Faculty, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University College of Engineering
Cassandra Thiel, PhD, Assistant Professor, Departments of Population Health & Ophthalmology, NYU School of Medicine; Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Urban Engineering, NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Project: Decarbonizing Health for Sustainable Care
Laurie Marrauld, Ph.D., is a 2024–25 French Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice. She currently works as a lecturer at the French School of Public Health (EHESP), specializing in the use of digital health and sustainable care. She holds a RESPECT research chair, focusing on the resilience of health care organizations. Since 2019, Marrauld is the project leader of the “decarbonizing health for sustainable care” project of the Shift Project think tank. She completed a doctorate in management sciences at Télécom Paris, a top French engineering school, before joining the Genie-Industrial Lab at the École Centrale de Paris and the management research center at the École Polytechnique as a postdoctoral fellow.
Marrauld now focuses her research on the transformation of health care organizations in the context of ecological and epidemiological transitions. In May 2023, she was appointed to the French Ministry of Health as an expert on the road map for ecological planning of the health care system.
Project overview: The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared health resilience a priority for the coming years. According to the Lancet, climate change is the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. At the same time, health systems and their organizations are stakeholders in these climate and environmental changes. The health care carbon footprint of the U.S. represents 8 to 10 percent of its national footprint. My research seeks to address the following issue: To what extent can health care facilities mitigate the carbon impacts of their activities while improving their resilience? Associated with that question, the first research objective addresses the implementation of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies in the health care sector. The second objective is to understand the levers for action. The third objective is better understanding of adaptation strategies to climate change that integrate mitigation issues.
To explore these issues, I will collect qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative interviews will explore stakeholders’ views on the questions outlined above. The aim of the questionnaire is to understand whether the qualitative results are generalizable and reflect major trends. My research work aims to contribute to a decrease in the GHG emissions of U.S. health care systems (and beyond). In my results, I will seek two kinds of innovations: technical and organizational innovations that are relevant to improving the environmental efficiency of health systems.