Introduction by Croakey: The Healthy Environment and Lives (HEAL) Network is hosting its annual conference from 26-28 November with the theme, ‘Healing with Country for a Sustainable Future for Everyone’.
The conference will host wide-ranging discussions on health, climate, and environmental challenges faced in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region, and internationally.
Below, Alison Barrett previews some of the key conference discussions, ranging from a citizen science project to presentations on the importance of music and other cultural determinants of health, and a new publication identifying some critical gaps in climate and health research.
Alison Barrett writes:
Amid global alarm about the escalating impacts of extreme heat, people living in east Arnhem Land and Mparntwe/Alice Springs in the Northern Territory are participating in citizen science projects to identify local hotspots.
Community members are sharing their lived experiences of hot weather, taking thermal image photographs of community infrastructure, such as playground equipment, and wearing keyring sized sensors to monitor air quality and temperature.
Their findings provide powerful illustrations of the risks of a warming climate. One thermal image taken by a research team member – after participants complained about hot cars in unshaded car parks – showed a baby seat that reached 54.1 degrees Celsius inside a car parked in Mparntwe/Alice Springs.
The citizen science research project, conducted by the Menzies School of Health Research, will feature at the upcoming HEAL Network conference, emphasising the importance of community-driven research in addressing the challenges of “global boiling”.
Timely discussions
The HEAL Network conference is a timely opportunity for critical discussions on key local, national and global climate issues, following on from the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
It also comes amid widespread alarm about how the Trump Administration will undermine climate action, both locally and globally, as foreshadowed by the President-elect naming oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright to lead the US Energy Department.
Wright is expected to fulfil the president-elect’s promise to increase fossil fuel production, as promised by his campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill”, the BBC reported.
Ahead of COP29, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for an end to reliance on fossil fuels, advocating for people-centred adaptation and resilience.
“The climate crisis is a health crisis, which makes prioritising health and wellbeing in climate action not only a moral and legal imperative, but a strategic opportunity to unlock transformative health benefits for a more just and equitable future,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
The HEAL2024 conference includes talks on housing, heat and health, antimicrobial resistance, One Health, urban heat mitigation, and health and environment in all policies.
Key speakers include Associate Professor Supriya Mathew from the Menzies School of Health Research, Professor Erica Donner from the CRC SAAFE University of South Australia, Associate Professor Carmel Williams from SAHMRI at the University of Adelaide, Professor Mark Howden and Dr Stewart Sutherland from Australian National University, Professor Pat Dudgeon from The University of Western Australia, and Professor Alan Rosen from the University of Sydney, University of Wollongong and Far West LHD Mental Health Services.
Healing Country
The conference has a strong focus on Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of doing.
A plenary session, titled ‘Speaking Indigenous research for/with/on Country’, will include three “very talented First Nations’ women” – Professor Naomi Sunderland, Dr Kisani Upward and Dr Vicki Saunders – the co-chair for the conference, Associate Professor Veronica Matthews, told Croakey.
These presenters work in arts-informed Indigenous research and will discuss First Nations perspectives of Country through the lens of art.
Matthews, from the University Centre for Rural Health, University of Sydney, said the conference theme, ‘Healing with country for a sustainable future for everyone’, “embodies the fact that our health is dependent on the health of Country” and that communities often have the solutions for restoring balance, decarbonising and reaching net zero goals.
Current research practices and the “dominant worldview is doing a disservice to us and the planet”, she said.
Matthews urges all of us to “restore the Indigenous worldview, which means acting with empathy, compassion and gratitude to everyone around us, including our environment”.
She added that the Indigenous worldview has worked for thousands and thousands of generations.
“We need to act in a more caring way, knowing that what we do now has implications for everything across space and time, and will create a healthy environment for the next thousands and thousands of generations”, she said.
Research gaps
A policy session organised with the Department of Health and Aged Care will include an opening address by Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care Ged Kearney, via a pre-recorded video.
As well, the session will include oral presentations by Dr Alice McGushin, Assistant Director of the National Health, Sustainability and Climate Unit, Dr Stefanie Carino, Sustainable Healthcare Manager at the Climate and Health Alliance and Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis, Director of the HEAL Network, University of Canberra.
This session will cover work undertaken by the HEAL Network and the National Health, Sustainability and Climate Unit on nutrition policy in hospitals, waste management in healthcare and the report, ‘Systematic mapping review of Australian research on climate change and health interventions’ which was released last week, according to Vardoulakis, conference co-chair.
The systematic mapping review highlighted a range of research gaps, including limited evidence on relevant interventions, such as those aiming to build long-term resilience to floods.
The researchers found more studies discussing interventions addressing extreme heat than other hazards. They suggest this may be because extreme heat causes more injuries and death than other extreme weather events. However, they write, it is important to assess interventions for a diverse range of climate hazards.
Across all themes of the review – health system decarbonisation; health system adaptation, vulnerability and resilience; health co-benefits of climate change mitigation outside the health system; and adaptation to protect health in sectors outside the health system – researchers found only a limited number of studies focused on priority populations, including First Nations’ people. As well, limited stakeholder engagement and co-design were demonstrated in many of the studies.
Vardoulakis told Croakey that addressing these research gaps required “sustained funding” for interdisciplinary climate change and health research focusing on solutions.
He recommended that a health and climate research stakeholder roundtable or summit be convened to bring together funders, researchers from across all relevant disciplines, policy stakeholders, and practitioner and patient organisations. It should discuss and agree on key research gaps and priorities, identify needs and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, and recommend the best funding mechanisms.
The NHMRC targeted call for research on climate-related health impacts and effective interventions to improve health outcomes earlier this year was $5 million in total.
However, according to Vardoulakis, “the urgency and importance of this area of research would probably require a ten-fold increase of this amount to fully develop the scientific evidence base that will underpin the National Health and Climate Strategy and Health National Adaptation Plan”.
Vardoulakis told Croakey that philanthropic funding can also play a crucial role, particularly for non-traditional research projects, citizen science and community-led projects.
Moving forward, “placed-based research co-designed with communities, decision makers and health consumers, bringing together diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous knowledge, data science, epidemiology, and risk communication” would be the best strategy to generate the relevant research needed, he said.
This should be a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach, going beyond sectoral boundaries and extending to the upstream determinants of health and wellbeing including food systems, energy, housing, built environment, urban planning, and transport, he said.
WHO recommendations
In the COP29 special report on climate change and health, the WHO says that a combined mitigation – urgent reduction of fossil fuels – and adaptation approach “is essential for more effective responses to the impacts of a warming planet”.
More specifically, the WHO recommends prioritising equity, justice and human rights at the core of climate action and building “future-proofed” health systems by investing in low-carbon, climate-resilient health systems and building the capacity of the health workforce.
Collecting mortality and morbidity data relating to heat stress, for example, can be an “important input to monitoring climate change impacts and the potential effectiveness of adaptation efforts”, the report says.
Prioritising prevention efforts, health promotion and wellbeing in climate mitigation by addressing health determinants is another important recommendation.
To address housing issues and home energy efficiency, the WHO recommends appropriate thermal insulation systems as well as consideration of renewable electricity systems and natural ventilation.
The report emphasises the importance of ensuring these measures are distributed equitably to at-risk population groups.
Citizen science
As part of the Menzies’ citizen science projects, Air in Alice and Air in East Arnhem, community members are being trained to collect their own environmental data, in real-time.
For example, “we give people an option of taking a photo of an environmental issue and coming back and telling us a story or collecting samples of dust or soil or water” to send to the research team for analysis, Associate Professor Supriya Mathew, Menzies School of Health Research at Mparntwe/Alice Springs, told Croakey.
“We are extremely dependent on what people want to collect”, so it’s less targeted than usual research in that way, Mathew said.
In addition, the collected data is publicly available so the remote communities can access it.
This empowers residents to take control of their research agenda and advocate for what they want or need, whether it be for shade in schools or over playgrounds, Mathew said.
“Sometimes…it’s okay to just provide information, but I think it’s also really important to make sure people own the data”, rather than non-resident researchers collecting and owning the data and just sending through a report or flyer with summary findings, she said.
People are also more likely to disseminate and use the information within the community if they have access to the data, she said.
Mathew told Croakey they partner with local health services, including Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services, or councils to train people in environmental data collection.
Once local residents are trained, the research team plans to step back and allow the community to take full ownership of the data collection process.
At the conference, Mathew – a member of the HEAL Network – will chair the Rural and Remote Health session of the conference to discuss adaptation issues facing remote Australia, including housing conditions, and how citizen science projects can be a way to “actually move forward”.
“Every community is different, so we need to have a strategy to make sure that it doesn’t become a top-down approach. It becomes a community-driven approach,” she said.
Mathew explained how the western lens and fly-in, fly-out research models “may not be always helpful”.
It’s important to “let local people make the decisions” about their community needs, and use a strengths-based approach, encouraging the strategies that remote community members are implementing. There’s a lot of knowledge in communities, she said.
She will also present at the heat and health protection plenary.
Mathew told Croakey that “housing is among the biggest challenge” in remote Australia.
“As the temperature goes up”, severe heatwaves could be devastating in remote communities, especially for people who have chronic health conditions and when there are power failures, Mathew said.
It is a timely discussion, given the extreme heatwaves in the Northern Territory in recent weeks and the likelihood of more to come over the upcoming months.
While people can be treated in a hospital or a healthcare centre, they then usually return to the same house and “live in a really hot place”.
During hot periods, some people from remote communities move to Mparntwe/Alice Springs, where Mathew is based, living with relatives in houses that aren’t well-equipped to accommodate additional people, with resultant overcrowding of houses. Also, there are limited cool refuges, with some cooler facilities also serving alcohol which can contribute to social issues in the town.
Indigenous research paradigm
According to Dr Vicki Saunders, research strengthens “when you include more Indigenous and creative ways of approaching what a methodology is”. It shifts the lens or standpoint, allowing research enquiry to accommodate or respect multiple perspectives.
Saunders, from Central Queensland University, will participate in the panel showcasing Indigenous and arts-informed research paradigms.
She told Croakey her research focuses on poetic inquiry, which is about disrupting, destabilising and working with the sounds beneath the sounds of the words we use – “sort of like an invocation to Country that orients that discussion”.
She draws on practices and an arts paradigm of research to strengthen her research.
Saunders told Croakey that old ways of research have caused harm, and we need to “acknowledge the actions that everyday people take in their relationships with place and Country and caring for Country, because the wellbeing of Country is intimately connected with our collective wellbeing”.
Saunders hopes that HEAL conference delegates walk away following their panel with a “sense of hope” and mindfulness of the power of the stories we tell and listen to.
It is also important to be mindful of our own capacity for optimism, she said, particularly when telling stories or sharing messages about the future with kids and younger generations.
“If you teach hopelessness, then you see what we’re starting to see all over” the world now, she said.
While talking about climate change and destruction of Country is a complex and tricky story, “you also don’t want to give this sense of false hope”, but there is still the “moral imperative to maintain hope for the next generation”, Saunders told Croakey.
Music matters
Professor Naomi Sunderland told Croakey via email, that she’d “love people to walk away with an understanding of how diverse First Nations People think about, value, and experience First Nations music as a cultural determinant of health”.
“Our diverse conceptions and experiences of music are often intimately tied to Country, family, and spirituality,” she said.
“Music is a form of cultural action and a force of nature. We speak, sing, and play from and with Country to keep Country, culture, and people well.”
Sunderland said that combinations of listening to music and connecting to Country can have profound effects on audiences, as was shown in pilot research for The Remedy Project (www.remedyproject.org).
L: Kristy Apps, non-Indigenous queer social worker, during some training on LGBTIQA+ inclusion, at partner organisation Children’s Ground, on Arrernte Country Mparntwe/ Alice Springs.
R: Remedy Project at Lewton Cultural Village on Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu, featuring collaborators and team members on the Remedy Project.
Political context
Vardoulakis told Croakey that extreme events in other parts of the world cause disruption, migration, economic and health impacts, and subsequent knock-on effects on the Australian economy, population, and health system.
“In many ways, what’s happening overseas is sometimes even more important than what’s happening close to home”, he said.
“Climate change, environmental change…doesn’t respect geographical boundaries. It’s a global problem with local impacts and requires…global collaboration as well as local solutions,” Vardoulakis said. “It has also been a big year of political extremes, to put it mildly.”
However, in the face of these challenges, we need to accept that things are not always going to go “the way that we wish, the way that evidence is pointing to”, but we shouldn’t despair.
“There is hope despite the headwinds,” he said.
Working with young people, students and communities can help harness hope, as well as learning from the incredible resilience of First Nations to environmental change and their fight for justice, Vardoulakis told Croakey.
He also highlighted the importance of collaborating and working across disciplines, and with communities and policymakers. Vardoulakis told Croakey it is very important that the commitments made at last year’s COP are actioned by governments, with a continuing focus on climate and health.
Matthews echoed these sentiments saying “our efforts need to continue” despite recent setbacks including the recent findings of the State of the Climate report and Trump’s re-election.
The work will become harder, but Matthews remains optimistic. Most communities and some industries outside of government have a good understanding of the need to transition to net zero quickly.
While the Federal Government has made commitments to decarbonise the health system and “make health systems more resilient in the face of climate change”, Matthews said action outside of government is also required.
“It’s going to take this grassroots action and planning to carry us forward in a positive way,” she said, emphasising one of HEAL’s key principles of place-based approaches and community-based participatory action research.
Sustainable events
The HEAL Network strives to minimise the carbon impacts of its conference. Regional face-to-face sessions are held in each state/territory, followed by a two-day online program.
While the Network understands that travel is sometimes necessary – “and we do travel as well”, Vardoulakis said they try to minimise the impact of their events by actively minimising interstate travel.
“When we organise events, [we] try to do that in a decentralised way, which reflects the nature of the network,” he said.
“We also try to minimise waste, for example, by not printing conference materials and by reducing food waste.”
*** AI disclaimer – the interviews undertaken in this research were recorded and transcribed via Otter AI app. The quotes in this story have been verified against the audio.
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