Rutgers Institute for Health core faculty member Soko Setouchi was named a 2024-2025 National Institute of Health Climate and Health Scholar.

The NIH Climate and Health Scholars Program connects climate and health scientists from outside the federal government with NIH researchers to share their knowledge and expertise. Setoguchi will be hosted by the National Cancer Institute as an NIH Scholar and will collaborate on a diverse array of activities sharing scientific knowledge with NIH intramural investigators, program staff, and the broader NIH community.

Setoguchi, a general internist and epidemiologist, is a faculty member in the Institute for Health’s Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science, professor of medicine and epidemiology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers School of Public Health, and a co-director of the Rutgers Master of Science in Clinical and Translational Science. She directs multiple climate, health, and healthcare sustainability initiatives at Rutgers, co-leading the Rutgers Health Climate Action Group and the RWJBarnabas Health Sustainability Committees. Setoguchi’s research expertise lies in health services research and pharmacoepidemiology, with a focus on care and treatments for individuals with chronic diseases. In response to the increasing threats of climate change to the health of patients and communities, her research interests have expanded to include interdisciplinary, population-level studies addressing climate change’s impacts on health and its interaction with healthcare and treatments, which have been NIH-funded.

Setoguchi is the lead Co-Principal Investigator for the NIH-supported P50 Center for Asian Health Promotion and Equity, one of the twelve Health Equity Action Network (HEAN) centers funded by NIMHD. At HEAN, she co-leads the Environmental, Chemical, Climate, and Occupational Exposure (ECCO) Equity Action Group. At the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology, Setoguchi founded a special interest group on “Environmental Pharmacoepidemiology,” pioneering a new subdiscipline called “Environmental Pharmacoepidemiology/Health Services Research.” This emerging field addresses the intersection of environmental factors with therapies and healthcare delivery, focusing on treatment-environment interactions and care disruptions caused by the climate crisis. It employs data science and epidemiologic methods, along with patient, stakeholder, and community engagement, to develop and test potential solutions.

The NIH Climate and Health Scholars Program was established in 2023 to help build climate and health research capacity at the NIH. The purpose of this program is to support NIH institutes, centers, and offices (ICOs) in developing a stronger climate and health knowledge base in the scientific domains outlined in the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative’s Strategic Framework. The thirteen selected NIH Climate and Health Scholars will complete a diverse array of projects and publicly present as part of the NIH Seminar Series.