The center was established 22 years ago at Harvard Medical School as the Center for Health and the Global Environment. It moved to the Harvard Chan School in 2012.

In her remarks, McCarthy, professor of the practice of public health, said that interactions with Harvard students have provided something of a salve amid efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle much of the Obama administration’s environmental measures.

McCarthy envisions a future where research drives individual action. She called health and climate a “magnificent twofer,” because efforts to improve health can also address climate concerns.

“Information is power, folks. If we get information out to people, I have great faith that people will do something with it — they’ll embrace it,” McCarthy said. “They’ll understand that the challenges we are trying to address are actually about them, not about polar bears in distant lands. It is about them and we can make the change that we want in the world if we work together, and that is what C-CHANGE is going to do.”

The center’s research initiatives include Healthy Kids and Climate; Healthy Buildings; and Healthy Cities and Climate.

As part of the launch, center Co-Director Joseph Allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment science, announced a partnership with Google to improve indoor health. The center and Harvard’s Office for Sustainability will collaborate with the tech giant to seek market-based solutions that promote the development of healthier building materials, he said.

The center’s goal “is to help all people in all buildings everywhere every day,” said Allen, who heads the Healthy Buildings program. “We cannot do this by producing research in a vacuum, because all too often academic journals are where great research goes to die. This center is going to work to ensure that doesn’t happen.”