The column this week brings a stack of recent releases on climate health matters, principles for a just transition for Indigenous peoples globally, as well as First Nations health news and snippets from several major conferences.
The quotable?
This is not a tough on crime policy, this is a tough on black kids policy.”
Spotlight
Two climate-related publications feature this week: one on seizing “the opportunities” of a disaster to promote useful adaptation; and the other on a new resource to aid policymakers and researchers searching for evidence on interventions in the area of environment, climate change and health.
Carnegie: Adaptation Through Shock
Climate shocks, whether hurricanes, bushfires or flooding, open windows when the disaster recovery system can encourage and support adaptation to new climate realities, according to this article published by the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace.
The authors write that: “Disasters are moments when change happens in communities: Resources flow, and decisions, big and small, are made to rebuild, to elevate, to harden, or to say goodbye. Disasters push people and communities to ask what their future will look like as the policy landscape changes.”
Three aspects of system flexibility in the aftermath of disasters make them unique moments for advancing potentially positive adaptive change: individual and collective willingness to envision new ways to live, large increases in funding from public and private sources, and emergency powers the government grants itself that increase flexibility across a range of functions.
To drive adaptation toward a more resilient future, the authors say “expanded policy imagination” is needed to: prioritise people over property in disaster-recovery programs, develop forward-looking supportive relocation programs, use data to support people wherever they are after a disaster, and create incentives to develop affordable housing in destination communities where disasters will drive people in our new climate reality.
“Those of us who study and write about the changing climate – and really anyone who’s living in the current environment or thinking about our children’s futures – are rightfully afraid of the future that scientists have explained to us: communities destroyed by rising sea levels, unbearable heat and drought, and countless and intense disasters. It’s terrifying,” the authors write.
“But it’s also a moment for imagination, possibility, and action. There’re things we can do right now, using dollars we already spend, to begin to make a significant difference in softening the blow of the coming climate catastrophe. But many of the possible policy shifts will be necessary to bring an adaptation lens to a disaster recovery framework.”
The article is by Katie Mears, senior technical specialist for US Disaster and Climate Risk at Episcopal Relief & Development, and Sarah Labowitz, a nonresident Scholar in the Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program.
The World Health Organization has developed a repository of systematic reviews on interventions in the area of environment, climate change and health.
The repository aims to provide a user-friendly tool for quickly finding systematic reviews and meta-analyses on specific topics.
“The repository is a resource for anyone interested in the interlinkages between health and environment and is also targeted at decision makers, intervention implementers and researchers in order to identify priority issues and support evidence-based action. Furthermore, it can be used to identify areas in need of greater research.”
The world is facing a triple planetary crisis, marked by escalating climate change, alarming biodiversity loss, and a significant increase in environmental pollution, all of which have a critical impact on human health. It was estimated that in the year 2016 as much as 24 percent of global human deaths were attributable to environmental risks, which could be largely prevented through healthier environments.
More climate news





Nature Sustainability: Radical climate protests linked to increases in public support for moderate organizations
“Our results suggest that increased awareness of a radical group as a result of a highly publicised non-violent disruptive protest can increase identification with and support for more moderate climate groups (here, Friends of the Earth) in the span of only two weeks. Our study provides new insights into the dynamics of social movements and the role of radical protest in driving change.”
Global health
BMJ Global Health: Social, cultural and political conditions for advancing health equity: examples from eight country case studies (2011–2021)
These Australian ressearchers used case study methodology to identify five countries (Ethiopia, Jordan, Spain, Sri Lanka and Vietnam) that made progress on health equity during 2011–2021 and three countries (Afghanistan, Nigeria and the USA) that had not made the same gains.
The case studies revealed social, cultural and political conditions that appeared to be prerequisites for enhancing health equity.
Data related to population health outcomes, human development, poverty, universal healthcare, gender equity, sociocultural narratives, political stability and leadership, governance, peace, democracy, willingness to collaborate, social protection and the Sustainable Development Goals were interrogated – revealing four key factors that help advance health equity.
These were:
- Action directed at structural determinants of health inequities, for example, sociopolitical conditions that determine the distribution of resources and opportunities based on gender, race, ethnicity and geographical location
- Leadership and good governance, for example, the degree of freedom, and the absence of violence and terrorism;
- A health equity lens for policy development, for example, facilitating the uptake of a health equity agenda through cross-sector policies
- Taking action to level the social gradient in health through a combination of universal and targeted approaches.
“Reducing health inequities is a complex and challenging task,” say the researchers. “The countries in this study do not reveal guaranteed recipes for progressing health equity; however, the efforts should be recognised, as well as lessons learnt from countries struggling to make progress.

First Nations health news
MJA: Physical activity interventions to prevent and manage type 2 diabetes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: a systematic review
“Quality research into the impact of physical activity interventions on type 2 diabetes in Indigenous people is sparse. To improve research translation, studies that involve Indigenous community members at all levels of the research process are needed.”
Public health


#AusPol

Conference Watch
World Meliodosis Congress
Oceania Tobacco Control 2024
Remote Medicine Australia
Media matters

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Events