ENBEL and partners organise a session named “Interventions to reduce the impacts of extreme heat on health in Africa: a set of case studies across the continent and an interventional framework” at the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress 2022 (SRI2022) held online and onsite in Pretoria, South Africa, June 20-24, 2022.

Extreme heat is already having major impacts on health in Africa, especially in vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, newborns, urban populations in informal areas, and outdoor workers. While evidence is accruing on heat-health impacts in Africa and modelling studies are beginning to document the likely size of future health impacts with global warming, little research has been done on which interventions can reduce these impacts. Of particular note, no interventions have assessed whether interventions can reduce the impacts of heat exposure on maternal and newborn health, of evaluated the effectiveness of passive housing adaptation technologies such as ‘’cool roofs’’. Identifying effective interventions is urgent as this information could inform research prioritisation and services programming as additional climate financing becomes available. This session reports findings from studies set in five countries across Africa that are amongst the first studies on heat adaptation on the continent, specifically a behavioural change interventions to reduce heat impacts, ‘’cool roof’’ interventions, water availability in schools in areas with hot climates, and an Early Warning System that centres around Indigenous practices to reduce heat burden. These examples of interventions illustrate the ability of translating knowledge generated into solutions that involve the public and private sector, as well as researchers and communities. Taken together, the body of knowledge presented in this session has the potential to guide future research actions and inform initiatives to scale-up packages of adaptation solutions to reduce heat-health impacts that span behavioural changes, Indigenous practices, access to cool water, and passive cooling technologies in households and health facilities. Intersections of these interventions with mitigation initiatives are also discussed. Finally, we present a framework for classifying interventions and an approach to selecting an optimised package of services in different settings.

Speakers:

Siphesihle Maseko, Session Host, Team SRI

Caradee Wright, Chief Specialist Scientist, SAMRC (ENBEL)

Ijeoma Solarin, MPH, Researcher, Wits RHI

Vincent Pagiwa, Research Fellow, University of Botswana (ENBEL)

Jan Hugo, Dr, Lecturer/Researcher, University of Pretoria

Gloria Maimela, Director Wits RHI

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Climate, Environment and Health (CEH) projects were funded by the Belmont Forum to undertake interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research to describe complex climate, ecosystem and health pathways and inform planning and enhance resilience for health adaptation. CEH-funded research outputs aim to improve preparedness and response to climate’s impacts on human health, and support climate services, prevention, adaptation or development measures that provide significant population health benefits.

This session will review progress in the projects in co-design with stakeholders and engagement of the end users of their research. A range of case studies from the CEH projects, which have been running for more than 2 years, will be presented, illustrating a variety of settings, health topics and methods/approaches to co-design.

Case studies include:

• working with farmers in Nepal on nutrition (MICRO-POLL);

• working with health workers and women in Kenya and Burkina Faso on reducing the impacts of extreme heat (CHAMNHA);

• working with communities to manage extreme weather events (CCCEHN);

• working with the health sector in Taiwan (AWARD-APR) and

• working with farmers and employers to develop research on occupational heat stress (PREP).

We will reflect on the lessons learned from these case studies and identify common themes to inform future researchers and research funders.

This event is organised by the ENBEL project that aims to synthesise the findings of the CEH projects for stakeholders who work on climate and health.

Chair: Sari Kovats, Associate Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Speakers:

Amanda Shores, AAAS S&TP Fellow, Belmont Forum, NSF, Future Earth US Hub

Liz Rowse, Senior Programme Manager, NERC-UKRI

Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, University College London and University of Agder (CCCEHN)

Thomas Timberlake, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Bristol (MICRO-POLL)

Heath Prince, Director and Research Scientist, Ray Marshall Center, UT Austin (PREP)

Ilana Weiss, Senior Director of Public Health & Policy, La Isla Network (PREP)

Yu-Chun Wang, Professor, Chung Yuan Christian University (AWARD-APR)

Kadidiatou Kadio, Reseacher, Institut de Recherche en Science de la Sante (IRSS) (CHAMNHA)

Adelaide Lusambili, Assistant Professor, Aga Khan University (CHAMNHA)

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Prof. Kathryn Bowen from the University of Melbourne will give an update from the IPCC WGII report chapter 7 on human health, wellbeing and the changing structure of communities. 

Members of the ENBEL consortium contributing to the IPCC WGII report Matthew Chersich and Joacim Rocklöv will comment from their perspectives.

See the recording of the webinar here.