The following international projects and initiatives address climate and health issues.

They are grouped into the following categories:

Please submit details of further activities that link climate and health in a global or developing country context by contacting ehdnet@uea.ac.uk
 

Agenda-setting initiatives

• WHO global consultation on climate change and health
Following  a global consultation with leading researchers, health practitioners and representatives of funding bodies and UN agencies, the World Health Organization published a report in 2009, entitled ‘Protecting health from climate change: global research priorities. The report is available at:
http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/9789241598187/en/index.html
WHO held a consultation on Health Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change Assessments in July 2010. The consultation, held in Costa Rica, aimed to evaluate draft guidelines for assessing vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the health sector, based on pilot studies in all WHO regions. A webpage containing the documentation is at:
http://www.who.int/globalchange/mediacentre/events/2010/costa_rica_consultation_200710/en/index.html
WHO has published the report of the consultation on Essential Public Health Package to Enhance Climate Resilience in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which was held in Switzerland in September 2010. The consultation aimed to define the core public health functions that should protect populations from climate change impacts, including linking environment and health surveillance, vector control and disaster risk reduction (DRR).
http://www.who.int/globalchange/mediacentre/events/2010/EssentialPublicHealthPackage_September_2010_Consultation_Meeting_Report.pdf

• World Health Assembly resolution for climate and health
At the 61st World Health Assembly in 2008, all member states via their Ministers of Health approved the resolution for Climate Change and Health (WHA61.19) http://www.who.int/globalchange/A61_R19_en.pdf. Each WHO Regional Committee has and is implementing associated work plans, some of which include regionally delineated research priorities and plans for climate and health.

• WMA Declaration on health and climate change
The World Medical Association’s 2009 Declaration of Delhi on Health and Climate Change was signed in the run-up to the UNFCCC COP-15 summit in Copenhagen. The document provides a response by the WMA on behalf of its members to the challenges imposed on health and healthcare systems by climate change.
http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c5/index.html

• Commonwealth survey on responses to the health impacts of climate change
In the run-up to the annual Commonwealth Health Ministers’ meeting of 2009, a questionnaire survey was carried out among commonwealth countries on the status of response to the health impacts of climate change and the challenges faced by health ministries in tacking these issues. A series of reports from 30 countries are available on the Commonwealth Secretariat’s website.
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/190698/172879/187615/191108/country_surveys/
 

Information hubs

• Wellcome Trust spotlight on health and climate change
The UK’s Wellcome Trust has a webpage that focuses on climate and health, including material on the consequences for health from changes in the climate and the public health benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
www.wellcome.ac.uk/climatechange

• UK Collaborative on Development Sciences
The UKCDS website has webpages dedicated to climate change, as well as to health and to environment. UKCDS brings together UK key government departments and research funders who support development sciences. Its goal is to maximise the impact of UK research on international development. The UKCDS website features funding opportunities, news, events and key publications to help researchers and policy-makers stay up to date with current issues and trends in development sciences research. 
www.ukcds.org.uk

• WHO climate change and human health webpages
The World Health Organization’s climate change webpages provide background information, publications and formal documents, and details of projects and event related to climate and human health.
http://www.who.int/globalchange/en
 

Research programmes/projects

• UEA research programme on vulnerability and response to health risks
This programme on climatic hazards entails a series of research projects led by the School of International Development at the University of East Anglia, UK. It entails study both of human behaviour and of institutional policy and practice in relation to the health risks from environmental hazards, focussing particularly on extreme weather events, such as floods, drought and windstorms, and on seasonal environmental changes. The work is informed by approaches to the analysis of hazards and vulnerability that highlight the social processes that generate and differentiate risk within human society.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/dev/faculty/Few/hazardshealth

• WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Change and Health
Climate change is one of the focal topics of the Centre on Global Change and Health, based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK. The centre brings together staff and students from a wide range of disciplines to contribute to research on health risks associated with climate change at the national, regional and global level. 
http://cgch.lshtm.ac.uk/

• Global Environmental Change and Human Health Project
This project aims to create an international network of researchers who can identify and quantify health risks posed by global environmental change, and develop adaptation strategies. It is co-sponsored by the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP), and WHO. The GECHH Science Plan is accessible at:
www.essp.org/fileadmin/redakteure/pdf/others/FINAL_GECHH_SP_UPDATED.pdf

• Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) projects
The CCAA is a joint programme of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada and the UK Department for International Development. Since 2008, the CCAA, together with IDRC’s Ecohealth Programme, has approved two sets of projects: on the interconnections between water, health and climate change in West and North Africa; and on food, health and adaptation to climate in East and Southern Africa.
www.idrc.ca/en/ev-94424-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

• CLACC research on human health aspects of climate change
Studies on climate change impacts and adaptation in relation to health were carried out in several countries in Africa and Asia through the programme ‘Capacity Building in the Least Developed Countries on Adaptation to Climate Change’ (CLACC).  Reports from these country studies were published in 2008 and are available on the CLACC website.
http://www.clacc.net/HumanHealth/index.html
 

Intervention projects & training

• WHO/UNDP project on health adaptation to climate change
WHO and UNDP launch in 2010 a global project on public health adaptation to climate change. This series of pilot projects aim to “increase adaptive capacity of national health system institutions, including field practitioners, to respond to climate-sensitive health risks”. This project is executed by Ministries of Health and other relevant national partners in Barbados, Bhutan, China, Fiji, Kenya, Jordan, and Uzbekistan. All country projects share four aims to enhance systems of early warning and early action; build capacity of national actors; pilot specific health risk reduction interventions; and document and share lessons learned in addressing the health risks associated with climate change in their area.
http://www.who.int/globalchange/news/climate_change_adaptation/en/index.html
WHO Project Contact: Joy Guillemot, Public Health and the Environment, guillemotj@who.int

• Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre
The Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre has secured funding for the project ‘Health risk management in a changing climate’, due to start in 2010. The project will address two of the main challenges to health posed by climatic change, focussing on extreme events in East Africa and vector-borne diseases in South-east Asia.
www.climatecentre.org/site/health

• SEARO training course on health and climate change
The WHO’s Regional Office for South East Asia has produced a training course for public health professionals on protecting health from climate change. The course objectives are to improve the knowledge of health professionals on the associations and implications of climate change on human health and to enhance stronger and more efficient participation of the health sector in addressing climate change challenges. The Training Course consists of 19 chapters based PowerPoint slides and text notes.
http://www.searo.who.int/en/Section260/Section2468_14932.htm