Abstract
BackgroundAddressing climate change and its associated effects is a multi-dimensional and ongoing challenge. This includes recognizing that climate change will affect the health and wellbeing of all populations over short and longer terms, albeit in varied ways and intensities. That recognition has drawn attention to the need to take adaptive actions to lessen adverse impacts over the next few decades from unavoidable climate change, particularly in developing country settings. A range of sectors is responsible for appropriate adaptive policies and measures to address the health risks of climate change, including health services, water and sanitation, trade, agriculture, disaster management, and development.ObjectivesTo broaden the framing of governance and decision-making processes by using innovative methods and assessments to illustrate the multi-sectoral nature of health-related adaptation to climate change. This is a shift from sector-specific to multi-level systems encompassing sectors and actors, across temporal and spatial scales.DesignA review and synthesis of the current knowledge in the areas of health and climate change adaptation governance and decision-making processes.ResultsA novel framework is presented that incorporates social science insights into the formulation and implementation of adaptation activities and policies to lessen the health risks posed by climate change.ConclusionClarification of the roles that different sectors, organizations, and individuals occupy in relation to the development of health-related adaptation strategies will facilitate the inclusion of health and wellbeing within multi-sector adaptation policies, thereby strengthening the overall set of responses to minimize the adverse health effects of climate change.
Highlights
Addressing climate change and its associated effects is a multi-dimensional and ongoing challenge
The problem of fit is an idea that has been used predominantly in the context of ecosystem-based management, and can be seen as the inverse of an ‘enabling environment’. This concept of ‘fit’ can usefully be applied to public health governance to understand the important and influential individuals and organizations that are involved in developing adaptation strategies relevant to the health risks of climate change, as well as the broader policy context
An understanding of the various elements of the goodness of fit presented here allows a fuller appreciation of the governance environment, thereby increasing our potential to strengthen these elements
Summary
Addressing climate change and its associated effects is a multi-dimensional and ongoing challenge. A greater understanding of decisionmaking processes and associated actors and organizations that yield power and influence will enhance the leveraging of policy access points Such knowledge enables realignment of adaptation activities to appropriately focus on individuals and populations whose health is most at risk from climate change. The problem (or goodness) of fit is an idea that has been used predominantly in the context of ecosystem-based management, and can be seen as the inverse of an ‘enabling environment’ This concept of ‘fit’ can usefully be applied to public health governance to understand the important and influential individuals and organizations that are involved in developing adaptation strategies relevant to the health risks of climate change, as well as the broader policy context. Social capital can be viewed as the capacity of a population to work harmoniously as a self-organizing unit, in which many individuals co-operate, but in which no single person, or even group, controls all activities
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