Climate Change Human Health Research Fast-Tracked

Climate Change Human Health Research Fast-Tracked





October 2008 - World health experts will document the 
human health effects of climate change under a new high priority research 
agenda agreed Wednesday at the end of a three-day meeting here convened by 
the World Health Organization and hosted by Spain's Ministry of Health. 
"This meeting has made clear that there is a need to enhance our evidence 
base on ways to protect health from climate change," said Dr. Bernat 
Soria, Spain's minister of health and consumption. "We welcome this plan 
which sets out a clear research agenda and addresses all countries' needs 
for evidence-based policy making." 
The plan is intended to speed up, focus and intensify climate change and 
health research to strengthen the evidence base for discussion at the UN 
climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, where world leaders 
will forge a new global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

Developed by WHO with more than 80 researchers on climate change and 
health, representatives of donors and other UN agencies, the plan builds 
on a comprehensive review of what is already known about health risks from 
climate change. 
"Many agencies, including WHO, have highlighted the health dangers of 
climate change," said Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general. "Our 193 
member states asked WHO to help them strengthen the evidence base for 
policy action. This plan provides the framework for doing just that." 
"It sets out guidance to governments, research institutions and donors 
looking to fill crucial knowledge gaps," she said. 
In the last decade, even though climate change has been increasingly 
acknowledged as an important risk to human well-being, its effects on 
health have received little research attention. 
Scientific papers describing the links between climate change and health 
are outnumbered by those on air pollution by almost eight times, and by 
those on smoking by almost 40 times. 
The WHO research plan identifies five priority research areas starting 
with interactions between the planet's rising temperature and other health 
determinants and trends. 
Climate change does not act in a vacuum. Participants at the meeting said 
there is an urgent need for a better understanding of how climate change 
will interact with other important health determinants and trends, such as 
economic development, globalization, urbanization, and inequities in 
exposure to health risks and access to care. 

The impacts of climate on human health will not be evenly distributed 
around the world. Developing country residents, particularly in small 
island states, arid and high mountain zones, and in densely populated 
coastal areas, are considered to be particularly vulnerable. 
Much is known of short-term health impacts of climate change, but there is 
a need for better characterization of the effects of long-term changes. 
These can be intensely stressful situations such as increasing drought, 
decline in freshwater resources, and population displacement. Health 
effects can range from mental and emotional disturbances to the physical 
risks of conflict, and they will be studied with a particular focus on 
children and other vulnerable groups. 
Different countries have taken a variety of approaches to deal with 
climate change-related health threats such as heatwaves and floods. The 
researchers will conduct comparative outcome assessments to help rank the 
effectiveness of these interventions. 
Participants at the Madrid meeting agreed on the urgent need for rapid 
assessment of the health implications of specific climate change 
prevention and adaptation policies in sectors other than health. 
These include the potentially negative effect of biofuels production on 
food security and malnutrition and the potentially positive health effects 
of sustainable energy and transport policies. 
Finally, researchers will investigate ways of strengthening public health 
systems to address the health effects of climate change. 
Most health system interventions to deal with climate change build on 
basic public health competencies, but WHO says more knowledge is needed to 
identify the best ways to implement integrated preventive public health 
strategies that reduce not just climate change related threats but all 
environmental health risks.





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