Solutions

There is mounting scientific evidence

that climate change threatens the

health of millions of people, but many

governments are only just starting

to act. WHO’s new

strategy is to provide

them with evidence

and advise them on

the best course of

protective action.

For WHO, the

shift to working in this

way has been rapid: 12

months ago, save for a

few workshops in de￾veloping countries, its

environment-related

activities were mainly

based on publishing.

But this refocusing

of priorities echoes

a change of opinion among Member

States that can be traced in part to the

severe heatwaves that engulfed Europe

in 2003.

“When the heatwaves came, there

were thousands of additional deaths in

countries with some of the best health

systems in the world,” recalls Diarmid

Campbell-Lendrum, a senior scientist

in the department of Public Health

and Environment at WHO.

I think one of the major problems with

mainstream thinking about climate

change and health is that people focus

only on the actions that need to be

taken to respond to things like more

cases of malaria. But they really should

be thinking in terms of how this extra

stress fits into the entire environmental

health agenda. By considering the issue

more broadly we could reduce by 25%

the global burden of disease.

For this to work, the health sector

needs to sit with other sectors and say

health needs to be part of your agenda.

They need to be empowered to be part

of decision-making. For the World

Health Organization (WHO), this

means providing health officials with

specific evidence about the conse￾quences of climate change and what

they can do. We are telling them that

they need to have a good epidemiolog￾ical surveillance system in place. They

need to be better prepared to respond

to vector-borne disease. They need to

take into account likely increases in

patient numbers and natural disasters

that create injuries. But the more

ambitious thing is to provide health

sectors with a catalogue of potential

interventions to discuss with other sec￾tors that can reduce current risk factors

for poor health as well as preparing for

the future. For example, interacting

with transport officials that make deci￾sions on the use of private cars presents

the opportunity of reducing respira￾tory diseases. Talking to urban plan￾ners will make sure any policy changes

also affect obesity and inactivity. And

bureaucrats involved in the manage￾ment of chemicals could act to prevent

pollution-related ill-health. ■