Mapping activities on climate and health to the essential public health operations (EPHO)

Abstract

Abstract Issue/problem Variation exists in the degree to which public health organisations are taking action on climate change and health. However, all countries must effectively and rapidly operationalise climate and health strategy in order to protect national and global population health. Among the challenges, public health systems can have difficulty in conceiving practical ways of taking action. Description of the problem Our objective was to develop a resource to support public health organisations in identifying how they can begin to address the issue of climate change and health. It was important for the resource to be balanced in terms of providing tangible examples whilst being sufficiently high level so as to enable translation to different contexts. The method involved using the World Health Organization's essential public health operations (EPHOs) as a framework upon which to describe suggested actions on climate change and health. A collection of expert reports on climate and health were selected and each of the ten EPHOs were cross-referenced against these. Results The results are illustrated in a spider diagram in which examples of public health activities are written around the ten standard icons of the EPHOs, and shown connected to these by adjoining and interconnected lines. The visual nature of the diagram is planned to assist the user in more readily appreciating the relevance of climate and health activities in the wider context of the conventional public health agenda. Lessons To our knowledge, potential climate change and health activities have not been mapped to the EPHOs before. Users are encouraged to adapt the diagram as a living document in their own organisations and to update it iteratively, as well as in the light of new published expert recommendations on climate and health. Since the model is based on the WHO EPHOs and contains only high level examples, it is hoped it could prove relevant across settings and countries. Key messages • Based on published recommendations, we mapped high level activities on climate change and health to the World Health Organization’s essential public health operations (EPHO). • Since the model is based on the EPHOs, it is hoped it could prove relevant across settings and countries, and help to address barriers to public health action on climate and health.