Tools and Methods to Include Health in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies and Policies: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Climate change represents a serious threat to the health and well-being of populations. Today, many countries, regions, and cities around the world are implementing policies and strategies to adapt to climate change and mitigate its effects. A scoping review was performed to identify tools and methods that help integrate health into climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and strategies. The literature search includes scientific and grey literature. The scientific literature was conducted using PubMed, Elsevier Embase, and Web of Science databases. A grey literature web search was performed to complement the results. A total of 35 studies (28 from the scientific literature and 7 from the grey literature) were finally included. A large majority of research articles (24/28) and almost all reports (6/7) from the grey literature were published after 2010. Results show that the tools that were found most frequently are the nested models (12/35), health impact assessment (6/35), vulnerability and adaptation assessment (3/35), conceptual frameworks (3/35), and mixed methods (3/35). This review shows an increasing interest in the topic of developing tools to better manage health issues in adaptation and mitigation strategies, with a recent increase in the number of publications. Additional analyses of tools’ effectiveness should be conducted in further studies.

Climate Change Adaptation Methods for Public Health Prevention in Australia: an Integrative Review

“…In the scientific literature, ten articles identified were mainly contextualised globally [ 7 , 15 , 21 , 30 – 36 ] while three others were from the USA [ 37 – 39 ]. The methodologies used to address CCA were eight report/commentary [ 7 , 30 , 32 , 34 – 36 , 38 , 39 ] while five others were reviews [ 15 , 21 , 31 , 33 , 37 ]. Articles found through the grey literature search have different characteristics than the scientific literature.…”

“…To address this, countries and cities must develop policies or strategies aimed at reducing vulnerability to the future impacts of climate change [ 15 ]. The extent to which known health effects are influenced depends on the degree of implementing proactive, timely, and effective adaptation strategies [ 16 ].…”

Wildfire-Related Catastrophes: The Need for a Modern International Safety Investigation Procedure

“…The implementation of a wildfire investigation procedure could rely on an approach in which the importance of health is integrated into the environmental systemic impact of wildfire (Briggs, 2008). In fact, a recent review shows that there is an increasing interest to develop tools that can take care of health issues in mitigation within the climate change adaptation strategies (Delpla et al, 2021). This inclusion in wildfire-related catastrophes investigations may help to decrease morbidity and mortality, and it certainly can be a force multiplier to promote implementation.…”

Urban Climate Policy and Action through a Health Lens—An Untapped Opportunity

“…In recent years, there have been efforts to develop new tools for assessing the health impact of climate and other policies which have broadened our understanding of climate-health co-benefits. Health impact assessments (HIAs) are a practical approach used to judge the potential health effects of a policy, programme or project on a population, particularly on vulnerable or disadvantaged groups, Along with related models such as comparative risk assessments or integrated HIAs [ 25 ], these tools have demonstrated the potential health co-benefits of urban climate strategies that were highlighted in the previous section [ 3 ]. Nonetheless, this policy-oriented research has not been followed by widespread policy action [ 26 , 27 , 28 ].…”