The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change

Abstract

The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change is an international, multidisciplinary research collaboration between academic institutions and practitioners across the world. It follows on from the work of the 2015 Lancet Commission, which concluded that the response to climate change could be "the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century". The Lancet Countdown aims to track the health impacts of climate hazards; health resilience and adaptation; health co-benefi ts of climate change mitigation; economics and fi nance; and political and broader engagement. These focus areas form the fi ve thematic working groups of the Lancet Countdown and represent diff erent aspects of the complex association between health and climate change. These thematic groups will provide indicators for a global overview of health and climate change; national case studies highlighting countries leading the way or going against the trend; and engagement with a range of stakeholders. The Lancet Countdown ultimately aims to report annually on a series of indicators across these fi ve working groups. This paper outlines the potential indicators and indicator domains to be tracked by the collaboration, with suggestions on the methodologies and datasets available to achieve this end. The proposed indicator domains require further refi nement, and mark the beginning of an ongoing consultation process-from November, 2016 to early 2017-to develop these domains, identify key areas not currently covered, and change indicators where necessary. This collaboration will actively seek to engage with existing monitoring processes, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and WHO's climate and health country profi les. The indicators will also evolve over time through ongoing collaboration with experts and a range of stakeholders, and be dependent on the emergence of new evidence and knowledge. During the course of its work, the Lancet Countdown will adopt a collaborative and iterative process, which aims to complement existing initiatives, welcome engagement with new partners, and be open to developing new research projects on health and climate change.

Manifestaciones de salud asociadas a elementos medio ambientales: el caso de la ocurrencia de coccidioidomicosis en México 2004-2015

“…Los factores ambientales constituyen una área de estudio de creciente interés en la búsqueda por comprender las causas en el desarrollo de padecimientos de salud, incluidos aquellos de carácter infeccioso (Manzanares, 2017a;Watts et al, 2016); a pesar de que diversas iniciativas de investigación se han referido a este vínculo como "the greatest global health opportunity of the 21 st century" (Wang y Horton, 2015), en países de América Latina, como México, se cuenta aún con escasos esfuerzos para atender este reto (Olivares, Calderón, Mora y Martínez, 2004).…”

WADEM Climate Change Position Statement

“…4 The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030), a 2015 UN landmark agreement, outlines priorities for action while identifying climate change as both a driver of disaster risk and as an influencing factor of disaster impact and sustainable development. 5 As a result, WADEM:…”

Klimakrisens muligheter

“…Men helseutfordringene knyttet til et klima i rask endring er håndgripelige realiteter allerede nå. Det reflekteres også i flere multinasjonale initiativer for å takle de helseproblemene som kommer i kjølvannet av klimaendringene (8,9). For de virkemidlene som kan gi mindre markante klimaendringer, kan også gi bedre helse: Eksempelvis vil lavere bruk av fossilt brennstoff ha betydelige positive helseeffekter.…”

“…For de virkemidlene som kan gi mindre markante klimaendringer, kan også gi bedre helse: Eksempelvis vil lavere bruk av fossilt brennstoff ha betydelige positive helseeffekter. Kull står for 40 % av verdens produksjon av elektrisitet og bidrar til over halvparten av verdens luftforurensning (9). Overgang til renere energikilder vil ikke bare gi lavere CO 2 -utslipp, men også ha betydelige helseeffekter grunnet reduksjon av blant annet hjerte-og lungesykdommer (9).…”

“…Kull står for 40 % av verdens produksjon av elektrisitet og bidrar til over halvparten av verdens luftforurensning (9). Overgang til renere energikilder vil ikke bare gi lavere CO 2 -utslipp, men også ha betydelige helseeffekter grunnet reduksjon av blant annet hjerte-og lungesykdommer (9). Bremsing i bruken av fossilt drivstoff og overgang til mer aktive former for persontransport vil på samme måte bidra til mindre livsstilssykdommer.…”