Urban Climate-Health Action: A New Approach to Protecting Health in the Era of Climate Change

With more than half of the world’s population living in urban areas, Urban Climate-Health Action: A New Approach to Protecting Health in the Era of Climate Change, identifies the critical gaps in city-level responses to climate-induced health threats and releases a three-step action plan to help cities around the world more effectively plan for and respond to the global health emergency caused by climate change.

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A local delivery system with 3 key elements

Recognizing these gaps in health system resilience, the report outlines, and advocates for, a three-step system to deliver climate-informed health action at a ground level. The components of this local delivery system include:

1. Collaboration between health and meteorological agencies
Advocating for collaboration between health and meteorological agencies to gather data and forecast the impact of climate change on the health of vulnerable populations;
2. Local coordination for early action
Building local coordination for early action with leaders and experts across climate, health, urban planning, transportation, education, and civil society who apply climate insights to local prevention and response plans;
3. Effective communication initiatives
Preparing for future climate-related health threats by ensuring timely, effective communications reach those most at risk.

Case Studies

Pioneering city-led initiatives have already made an impact on the lives and well-being of urban dwellers across the world.

Local, multisectoral coordination
Heatwaves in Dhaka
To minimize the health effects of heatwaves in Dhaka, the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society engaged a multisectoral team to develop an Early Action Protocol. Using heat forecasting and vulnerability data, responders managed to alert 1 million at-risk people and deploy live-saving resources including water and umbrellas. If scaled to 57 countries, this system could save almost 100,000 lives yearly.

Local, multisectoral coordination
Dengue in Rio de Janeiro
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Health Surveillance Superintendence brought together a multidisciplinary team to manage dengue outbreaks. This team, consisting of the Operations and Resilience Center and other local partners, predicted a spike two months earlier than forecasted by traditional epidemiological models, leading to timely response and the lowest death rate over the last four epidemics.

Climate and health sector collaboration
Dengue in Bangalore
Recognizing the increased risk of dengue in Bangalore, India, the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK) built a platform for dengue data collection. Layering this with weather, population and land use data, the Dengue Platform provides risk forecasts up to 4-weeks in advance, allowing practitioners to coordinate mitigation activities and protect vulnerable populations.

Risk Communications
Cholera in Lusaka
In Lusaka, Zambia, the El Niño climate phenomenon has led to acute water insecurity, increasing local cholera incidence. A Risk Communication and Community Engagement response led by the Collective Service, has allowed practitioners to better understand community needs and concerns, and resultantly to improve the uptake of vaccines and oral rehydration salts, resulting in fewer community deaths.

National Policy
National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessments (VAA) in Uganda
While Uganda is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries globally, most sectors including health have historically not accounted account for this risk. Addressing this, the Ugandan Ministry of Health published a Health National Adaptation Plan and Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment in August 2024. Identifying key climate risks to health, these documents are set to guide national policy.

Collaboration between health and meteorological agencies
Heatwaves in Senegal
Despite robust meteorological data, poor cross-talk between climate and health services has hindered the effective management of heatwaves in Senegal. Recognizing this, ANACIM, the meteorological service, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Ministry of Health, produced a Heatwave Early Warning Bulletin to inform targeted responses at national and local levels.

Global goods
SORMAS
Recognizing issues in the management of the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic, Nigeria developed SORMAS, an open-source platform for real-time data sharing and task management. When used over the Covid-19, pandemic, demand for SORMAS increased globally. Now, with the growth of climate-related infectious diseases, SORMAS is integrating a critical One Health approach to environmental surveillance.

The Urban Climate-Health Action report was informed by data from the Urban Pulse: Identifying Resilience Solutions at the Intersection of Climate, Health and Equity survey. Conducted by Yale University and the Resilient Cities Network, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, the survey reveals that of nearly 200 city leaders in 118 cities in 52 countries, 70% of city leaders recognize these climate-related health threats, and over 90% report economic losses from such events. Despite this, few cities have emergency response plans that use reliable climate data, and only 20% have strong inter-departmental coordination.