Climate & Health

From record-breaking heatwaves, devastating wildfires, or catastrophic tropical storms, hurricanes, and flooding, the effects of climate change are directly contributing to significant humanitarian emergencies around the globe. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hazardous weather patterns have both direct and indirect effects on our health by increasing the risk of deaths, health emergencies, noncommunicable diseases, and the emergence and spread of infectious diseases.

Climate not only affects our physical environment, it also impacts social and economic conditions, including the ability of global health workforces, infrastructures, and systems, which in turn greatly reduces our capacity to achieve universal health coverage (UHC).

No one is safe from these risks, but it is people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities whose health is being harmed first — and worst — by the climate crisis, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Ironically, the people who contribute least to the causes driving climate change suffer the worst consequences.

“More fundamentally, climate shocks and growing stresses such as changing temperature and precipitation patterns, drought, floods and rising sea levels degrade the environmental and social determinants of physical and mental health. All aspects of health are affected by climate change, from clean air, water, and soil to food systems and livelihoods. Further delay in tackling climate change will increase health risks, undermine decades of improvements in global health, and contravene our collective commitments to ensure the human right to health for all.”

In 2023, WHO reported that 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change, which they project will cause at least 250,000 additional deaths each year. Climate extremes increasingly result in illnesses stemming from a broad range of causes, including air pollution, allergens and pollen, food security, food- and water-borne diarrheal disease, and mental health and stress-related disorders. Furthermore, recent research attributes 37 percent of heat-related deaths to human-induced climate change, with heat-related deaths among people over the age of 65 rising by 70 percent in the past two decades.

Climate change can also drive competition for dwindling environmental resources, which often results in conflicts and violence in impacted countries. When the negative impact of climate change is combined with already poor or overstressed health infrastructures, the outcomes can be disastrous.

A 2022 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, for example, revealed that roughly 40 percent of Sudan’s internal conflicts since it’s independence have been linked to environmental resource competition. Against a backdrop of rising temperatures and plummeting precipitation rates, the country’s agricultural spaces are collapsing thus bringing the hardest hit communities to the brink of famine. Years of conflict have devastated hospitals and health centers. Physicians, nurses, and frontline health workers have fled dangerous areas or even lost their lives. And, the Federal Ministry of Health has declared outbreaks of cholera, malaria, dengue fever, measles, and rubella, putting an estimated 3.4 million children under the age of five at high risk from epidemic diseases, UNICEF reported in September 2024.

The fact is that climate change exponentially multiplies many of the public health threats the world faces today; this underscores the critical importance of building climate-resilient health systems and training healthcare providers and policymakers to more effectively cope with the growing threat.

Our Response

Twinning Partnership Program to Support Primary Health Care in Ethiopia

Through our Twinning Partnership Program to Support Primary Health Care in Ethiopia, which we established in 2020 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, AIHA has been working to strengthen the capacity of the International Institute for Primary Health Care – Ethiopia (IPHC-E) to serve as both a national and regional resource to improve Ethiopia’s primary health care (PHC) system, and to contribute to the effective implementation of continuous capacity-building programs for health sector leaders at different levels. IPHC-E’s overarching goal is training human resources for health not only to provide critical health care services, but also to become change agents in the country’s PHC system.

In 2021, AIHA established a twinning partnership linking IPHC-E with the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia, to help transform the existing system into one that complies with modern criteria for universal health coverage (UHC) by supporting the provision of technical assistance and training in pedagogy, research, and evidence-based PHC practices for IPHC-E staff. This has allowed the institution to develop its own pool of trainers that are fully able to take over training activities moving forward.

Working in close collaboration with IPHC-E staff, experts from the University of Queensland developed a set of courses designed to help Ethiopia build a more climate resilient PHC system. The course is divided into four modules focusing on various aspects of building climate-resilient PHC systems:

• Climate Resilient PHC Systems
• Primary Care in Climate Resilient PHC Systems
• Community Engagement and Multi-sectoral in Climate Resilient PHC Systems
• Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Resilient PHC Systems

UQ partners piloted the course delivering it virtually to 35 individuals drawn from the Federal Ministry of Health, IPHC-E, and the six regional PHC Hubs established through the project.