MEDBOX Issue Brief no.23.
The intent of this Issue Brief is to raise awareness about heat waves as a result of climate change and its impact on
health. More information on the topic of climate change...an> and planetary health you can find in our PLANETARY
HEALTH TOOLBOX www.planetaryhealthbox.org
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched a new Framework for Environmental and Social Management (FESM) to ensure that both people and the environment are protected... from any potential impacts of FAO programmes and projects.
“This Framework ensures that our projects do both “no harm” and support the transformation to more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems by upholding the highest international standards for risk management,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu explained during a virtual event.
The Framework, which includes key elements of a people-centered approach and establishes environmental and social performance requirements for FAO programming, is also intended to ensure that all stakeholders, including local and indigenous communities, have ample opportunities to actively participate in projects’ activities and to voice their concerns about them.
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This report presents a framework to link science, policy and practice for a comprehensive assessment of climate mitigation and adaptation investments and their impact on human health.The framework proposes to use weather and climate data to forecast health impacts over time, as well as biophysical a...nd economic models to quantify the outcomes of investments in climate change adaptation and mitigation for relevant sectoral indicators and health co-benefits. It provides guidance on the economic valuation of health co-benefits of climate action, for inclusion in sector-specific cost–benefit analysis (CBA), including the spatial allocation of such costs and benefits.
The framework developed and presented in this study is comprehensive, and provides various entry points for different audiences, including decision-makers in the public and private sectors, researchers and scientists, working in the health sector as well as in other thematic areas and related sectors affected by climate action.
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Climate change is a verified, global phenomenon, but its consequences will not be evenly distributed. Developing countries and small island nations will be the most affected. Countries will experience more frequent extreme weather events and resulti...ng changes in water quality and availability, increased contamination of air, and food security problems. Health impact due to climate change include diarrhoeal diseases, vector-borne diseases, heat stress, malnutrition, deaths and injuries due to extreme weather events and mental stress.
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This report provides insight into the work that UNFPA has been doing to tackle FGM across borders in these border areas, where country offices are implementing a wide range of initiatives to address the issue. The information provided in this report is structured into four pillars, namely those list...ed in the regional action plan to eliminate cross-border FGM endorsed by the Governments that participated in the interministerial meeting on ending cross-border FGM held in 2019.
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Lancet Planet Health 2020; 4: e271–79
This article provides an overview of the current and projected climate change risks and impacts to mental health and provides recommendations for priority actions to address the mental health consequences of climate ...ht medbox">change.
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Journal of Land Use Science, 16:3, 223-239, DOI: 10.1080/1747423X.2021.1933226
Health is routinely considered in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and environmental impact assessment (EIA), following requirements of European Union directives and the Protocol... on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention). Policy-makers and other sources report that these assessments mostly adopt a biophysical perspective and that few cases consider or define health in a manner which is consistent with the WHO Constitution, by considering the wider social, economic, behavioural and institutional aspects of health. This systematically conducted review of over 333 SEA and EIA cases in the WHO European Region shows that while about 80% of assessments pursue a narrow, biophysical interpretation of health, around 10% consider wider determinants when defining health, and another 10% consider wider determinants of health in the actual assessment. Twelve case studies are presented, literature is reviewed and implications for practice are considered.
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Chagas disease is currently endemic and also predicted to be at increased transmission risk under future climate change scenarios. Similarly, an expansion of areas in the United States at increased risk for Chagas disease transmission is also expect...ed over the next several decades under climate change scenarios. Of particular interest is the predicted northern shift of triatomine species to central regions of the United States with historically unsuitable climates for T. cruzi vectors. The weight of evidence regarding the influences climate change may pose on T. cruzi vector species distributions demonstrates the sensitivity of Chagas disease transmission to future climate variability. In order to advance forecasts for the impact climate change may have on Chagas disease transmission in the Americas, it is imperative to
further develop, utilize, and perhaps combine predictive species distribution modeling approaches that integrate accurate, long term data on climate variables, vector species distributions, Chagas disease incidence, as well as other socio-ecological variables.
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Natural disasters often increase morbidity and mortality rates. Taking appropriate measures to maintain environmental health helps to reduce or eliminate the risks of preventable disease and death. Such measures contribute not only to the health of ...individuals in and near disaster-stricken areas, but they also contribute to decreasing the high costs of providing emergency health services in the aftermath of disaster.
This document is divided into several parts. The first section primarily addresses the effects of natural disasters on environmental health conditions and services. In the second section, environmental health measures are described that should be undertaken in each of three time frames: the predisaster, disaster, and postdisaster periods.
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- Pacific Possible Background Paper No.6