Tackling adverse health effects of climate change and migration through intersectoral capacity building in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Abstract

The international community increasingly acknowledges that climate change is not only spurring environmental degradation and health deterioration,1 it is also an important direct and indirect driver of migration, conflict, and human rights violations. This is particularly true for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the region where people — in contrast to high-income countries and high energy consuming industries, which emit the most greenhouse gasses on a global scale — are relatively more vulnerable to climate change, because their precarious socioeconomic status, lack of resources, and weak health systems constrain their adaptation capacity.2 Still, debate and research on the explicit interactions between climate change, migration, and health are scarce, and prevailing research and policies disproportionally neglect the voice of the global South, such as that of SSA. During the African conference of the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) and the African Primary Care and Family Medicine Education Network (Primafamed) meeting in Kampala, Uganda (4–6, June 2019), we organised focus groups with primary health care experts and family physicians (FPs) from twelve SSA countries, to explore these interactions. Although the climate research community underrepresents FPs, the latter are excellent sources of information. Their position in the centre of the community gives them insight …