Protecting health in a new era of climate reality

Communities and health systems face new disrupting changes resulting from climate change and system shocks. These include increased frequency of extreme heat waves, excessive rainfall, flooding or prolonged droughts. Such growing occurrences place strain on existing service delivery, damage infrastructure whilst also disconnecting communities from essential care. There is an urgent need to provide health professionals and health facility managers with practical, adaptable interventions and tools that strengthen facilities in the context of climate change and prepare the health sector as well as communities for future threats.

To help protect care, Scope Impact has prototyped a scalable, tech-enabled climate resilience tool.

The tool enables rapid evaluation of location specific vulnerability, linked to a facility level climate resilience gap assessment. The ensuing scoring prompts a solution menu with stepwise implementation guidance. We’ve rooted the tool in WHO’s Operational Framework for Building Climate Resilient Health Systems, Guidance for Climate-resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Care Facilities, as well as their climate vulnerability and risk assessment guidance.

In our next phase, we will be working together with a primary health care facility in an affected location over 6 months to jointly test, iterate and co-design the product prior to developing an open access digital tool.