Health Risk Management in a changing climate

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

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Abstract: Climate – temperature,rainfall,humidity – affects the geographical and seasonal distribution of many diseases. Demographic changes and increased global travel,urbanization and other environmental factors are also relevant. Public health programmes will now have to prepare for greater uncertainty about disease patterns that are also affected by human behaviour and other factors. The humanitarian and development communities acknowledge this,but there has been very little in the way of programme action. The Health Risk Management Project (“the project”) addresses this gap by selecting two diseases that involve contrasting interactions between climate and health: diarrhoeal disease in Kenya and Tanzania and dengue fever in Indonesia and Vietnam. It was implemented by the National Societies of those countries in conjunction with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).