Southeast Asia Climate and Health Responders

Tuesdays and Thursdays running June 6 - June 29, 2023

Collaborators

Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Planetary and Global Health Program, St. Luke’s Medical Center College of Medicine-College of Medicine, Philippines
Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia

Session Topics and Resources

Introduction

Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to the effects of climate change. It also faces a dual challenge—to adapt to the threats posed by climate change while ensuring that development strategies progress towards sustainability goals.  

In Southeast Asia, climate change exacerbates current burdens of disease and is deepening existing health inequities. For example, food, water and air quality changes as a result of climate change negatively impact nutrition, vector-borne diseases, cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, and perinatal and neonatal health. Furthermore, rapid-onset climate-driven extreme events, such as floods and cyclones, as well as slow-onset environmental changes, such as increasing heat and drought, affect mental health and many other facets which support stable and secure livelihoods. Everyone everywhere will feel the effects of climate change, but marginalized and vulnerable communities such as the rural poor, urban slum dwellers, mountain dwellers, coastal populations, and populations of small island nations will be disproportionately affected. In the face of these mounting health challenges, climate change can have a destabilizing impact on health systems across Southeast Asia, leading to overburdened health systems, disrupted health services and inadequate infrastructure, accessibility issues, supply chain interruptions and workforce shortages, as well as an inability to meet the financial cost of adapting to repeated climate threats.

The goal of this course is to equip healthcare practitioners and students, health systems planners, public health officials, and others interested in planetary health with the knowledge and tools needed to prepare for the impact of climate change on health. This includes an understanding of specific health impacts of climate change as well as how to apply best practices to assess health system vulnerabilities and adaptation options, measure and monitor the climate resilience and environmental sustainability of health systems and undertake health system greening.

Audience

The expected audience includes health professionals, including but not limited to nurses, physicians, paramedics, pharmacists, social workers, emergency workers, and public health officials, as well as health systems planners, hospital administrators, emergency planners, and sustainability officers who work in or with regions in Southeast Asia.

Join the course LinkedIn group! This group is intended to act as a forum for course participants to connect and share relevant climate and health resources.

Course Objectives

This training initiative aims to enhance the capacity of healthcare professionals and institutions in Southeast Asia to address challenges at the intersection of climate, environment, and health through a transdisciplinary approach. Participants will develop an understanding of specific health impacts of climate change. Participants will also develop a broad overview of health systems adaptation, resilience and sustainability strategies within a regional context. Participants will simultaneously work on building communication skills and engagement with their respective communities and various stakeholders with a focus on the science-policy interface.

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify various pathways through which climate change is impacting health in Southeast Asia
• Apply knowledge of the intersection of climate and health in clinical settings and administrative workplaces
• Articulate to key partners, patients and the general public the unique challenges health systems and health care facilities (including mental healthcare) face in a changing climate
• Apply frameworks for assessing vulnerability and adaptation for health systems
• Apply approaches for measuring and monitoring the environmental sustainability of health systems and opportunities to green health systems
• Apply a health equity lens into addressing the disproportionate health impacts of climate change on marginalized communities
• Apply a health equity lens into efforts to address health system decarbonization and build climate resilience

Course Structure

The course will consist of eight bi-weekly (Tuesday and Thursday) live-virtual 90-minute sessions, offered in English. Each session will consist of approximately 45 minutes of foundational lectures followed by 1-2 case studies and skill-based sessions, presenting examples of climate impacts on health specifically in a Southeast Asian population and context. There will be a live question and answer which will be facilitated by the program team and questions will be consolidated and addressed to expert lecturers. Resources such as frameworks and suggested readings will be provided to all course participants following each session. Video recordings will be available following each session for asynchronous view.