As communities in north Queensland brace for Cyclone Kirrily, large parts of Australia are facing heatwave warnings. Climate and health concerns are escalating, and our column this week brings news of developments in sustainable healthcare as well as barriers to climate action.
First Nations treaty news, #AusPol, and women’s leadership are also covered. Don’t miss details of upcoming conferences and other events.
The quotable?
We are in the midst of a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Environmental defenders are acting for the benefit of us all. It is therefore imperative that we ensure that they are protected.”
Climate health matters
In the United States, The Milbank Quarterly has issued a new publication, ‘Toward a Climate-Ready Health Care System: Institutional Motivators and Workforce Engagement’.
It addresses the barriers institutions face to becoming climate-ready, such as financial and regulatory constraints and understaffing, and outlines solutions to overcome these challenges, including policy recommendations and profession-specific opportunities to address the causes and impacts of climate change.
“Achieving climate readiness will depend on health care professionals at every level—from pharmacists and food service managers to nurses and social workers—everyone has an important part to play,” says Dr Caleb Dresser from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “We need all hands on deck to make lasting, systemic changes that will protect patients’ health.”
Policy recommendations include:
- Coupling healthcare system preparedness regulations with new funding streams
- Integrating sustainability metrics into health care organisation accreditation and certification
- Financing programs to improve health equity in the context of climate change
- Setting guidelines for inclusion of climate readiness information in health professional and health care administrator education and certification
- Professionalising climate readiness activities through formalisation of new roles and practice guidelines.
See the special issue journal 
Read at BBC: Oil giant ExxonMobil has sued climate activist investors in a bid to prevent their climate proposal from going to a vote at its annual investor meeting. 
Read the 23 January statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, Michel Forst, raising serious concerns about “regressive new laws” in the UK that are undermining the right to peaceful protest.
Forst said: “I am also distressed to see how environmental defenders are derided by some of the mainstream UK media and in the political sphere. By deriding environmental defenders, the media and political figures put them at risk of threats, abuse and even physical attacks from unscrupulous persons who rely on the toxic discourse to justify their own aggression. The toxic discourse may also be used by the State as justification for adopting increasingly severe and draconian measures against environmental defenders. In the course of my visit, I witnessed firsthand that this is precisely what is taking place in the UK right now. This has a significant chilling effect on civil society and the exercise of fundamental freedoms…
“We are in the midst of a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Environmental defenders are acting for the benefit of us all. It is therefore imperative that we ensure that they are protected.”
First Nations health and wellbeing
The Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) has expressed profound disappointment in the recent decision by the Victorian Opposition to withdraw its support from the Treaty process in Victoria.
“The abrupt reversal by the State Opposition is a heartless and callous manoeuvre to capitalise on anti-Voice sentiment for political gain, to the detriment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities,” the statement says.
Meanwhile, you can read more about the Victorian treaty process from the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.
In South Australia, nominations have opened for the First Nations Voice election, and the Northern Land Council has welcomed the recommencement of the Northern Territory Treaty process.
Read the MJA article, in which researchers call on governments and research funding bodies “to reimagine understandings of First Nations health research in Australia and to provide greater policy focus and funding allocation to urban First Nations health research”.
#AusPol
Senior Australian doctors are among those welcoming Labor’s decision to make the Stage 3 tax cuts more equitable. However, there is still not much public discussion of the importance of tax revenue for helping us to meet challenges such as the climate crisis and for addressing deep inequities in the provision of services such as healthcare and education.
The juxtaposition of these two Twitter posts below!
Read the Minister’s statement on the funding announcement 
Mozzies and measles
Australian researchers have confirmed suspicions that mosquitoes are spreading a bacterium that causes Buruli ulcer, a neglected tropical skin disease, from possums to people, accounting for an increase in the condition in coastal Victoria, including suburbs around Melbourne and Geelong.
Nature Microbiology: Mosquitoes provide a transmission route between possums and humans for Buruli ulcer in southeastern Australia
Doherty Institute release: 80-year mystery solved: Mosquitoes spread flesh-eating Buruli ulcer
The Conversation: Mosquitoes can spread the flesh-eating Buruli ulcer. Here’s how you can protect yourself
The Conversation article concludes: “While the rise in Buruli ulcer is a significant health concern, so too are many other mosquito-borne diseases. The steps to avoid mosquito bites and exposure to Mycobacteriam ulcerans will also protect against viruses such as Ross River, Barmah Forest, Japanese encephalitis, and Murray Valley encephalitis.”
Meanwhile, measles is making headlines around the world, for all the wrong reasons.
WHO information on measles
See: Influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on caregiver beliefs and experiences of routine childhood immunisation in Indonesia
Global health matters
How British American Tobacco lobbied Kenya to water down nicotine pouch warnings 
Watch the WHO webinar recording 
See the IPPR report
Women and health
See the article in Nature Medicine 
See the BBC article on cervical cancer prevention
See the Victorian Government statement on the gender pain gap. 
More public health news
#CroakeyREAD
Media matters
The news about big cuts to the LA Times matters for people who care about public health. This newspaper has a long history of investigative journalism including of public health concerns. A reduction in its capacity to do public interest journalism affects the global news ecosystem. Nor is it the only newsroom facing deep cuts.
Meanwhile, in light of ongoing controversy about the ABC’s independence, Croakey readers may be interested in this LongRead about how the BBC has been captured by government.
Events upcoming
