Background: Between 2010 and 2012, the World Health Organization Division of Pacific Technical Support led a regional climate change and health vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning project, in collaboration with health sector partners, in 13 Pacific island countries—Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
Objective: We assessed the vulnerabilities of Pacific island countries to the health impacts of climate change and planned adaptation strategies to minimize such threats to health.
Methods: This assessment involved a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. The former included descriptive epidemiology, time series analyses, Poisson regression, and spatial modeling of climate and climate-sensitive disease data, in the few instances where this was possible; the latter included wide stakeholder consultations, iterative consensus building, and expert opinion. Vulnerabilities were ranked using a “likelihood versus impact” matrix, and adaptation strategies were prioritized and planned accordingly.
Results: The highest-priority climate-sensitive health risks in Pacific island countries included trauma from extreme weather events, heat-related illnesses, compromised safety and security of water and food, vector-borne diseases, zoonoses, respiratory illnesses, psychosocial ill-health, non-communicable diseases, population pressures, and health system deficiencies. Adaptation strategies relating to these climate change and health risks could be clustered according to categories common to many countries in the Pacific region.
Conclusion: Pacific island countries are among the most vulnerable in the world to the health impacts of climate change. This vulnerability is a function of their unique geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics combined with their exposure to changing weather patterns associated with climate change, the health risks entailed, and the limited capacity of the countries to manage and adapt in the face of such risks.
1National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; 2Division of Pacific Technical Support, Western Pacific Regional Office, World Health Organization, Suva, Fiji; 3School of Public Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; 4Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand; 5World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health Impact Assessment, Curtin University, Perth, Australia; 6Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan; 7Faculty of Health and Sport Science, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan; 8Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; 9Centre for Health Research, School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia; 10School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
Recommended Citation:
Lachlan McIver,1,2* Rokho Kim,et al. Health Impacts of Climate Change in Pacific Island Countries: A Regional Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptation Priorities[J]. Environmental Health Perspectives,2016-01-01,Volume 124(Issue 11):1707