Author: World Health Organization (WHO)
Year of publication: 2013
Available languages: English
Type of assessment: Vulnerability assessment
Details: Vulnerability and adaptation assessment
Format of assessment: Guideline
Estimated costs for conducting: Context dependent
Estimated duration of assessment: Several months to more than a year
To be carried out by whom: Multiple actors
Details: Various stakeholders including scientists
Institutional scale of use: Continental
Details: National or regional
Assesment to be used by which target audience: Multiple actors
Details: State level and regional decision makers
Output: Report
Region of origin: Europe
Developed by which sector: Development cooperation
Applied in practice: Yes
Geographic coverage in analysis: Worldwide
Potential geographic coverage: Worldwide
Sectors covered: Health sector
Method used: Mixed method approach
Description of methodology: Spatial mapping is used to describe risk distribution, climate projections and health data, generally combination of qualitative and quantitative data
Risk framework used: No explicit use of risk framework
Risk components incorporated: All
Hazards and impacts considered in the assessment: Cyclone (including tropical storm, hurricane and typhoon), Drought, Extreme rainfall, Flood, Landslide, Storm surge
Details: Health, weather, population data, historical meteorological data. Relevant data sources: • World Climate Applications and Services Programm (WCASP): http://www.wmo.int/ pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/wcasp_home_en.html • Humanitarian Early Warning Service: http://www.hewsweb.org/ • Climate Prediction Center: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/ • National Climate Services: http://www.climate.gov/ • International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI)/Earth Institute’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) Climate Data Library: http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/ • IRI Climate and Health Resource Room: http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/.Health/
Details: Technically could be used for all, but is used for forward looking research (intended)
Participatory elements: Yes
Details: Assessing the health risks of climate change and identifying possible policies and programmes to increase resilience needs to be informed by all groups engaged in or concerned with the prevention and management of the health impacts of climate change, including within the ministry of health, universities, NGOs, national and regional emergency preparedness committees, and those affected by climate change. Community, regional and national climate change initiatives and those focused on managing climate-sensitive health risks may be helpful in identifying appropriate stakeholders.
Consideration of interconnectedness and -dependencies of risks: Yes
Adressing uncertainty: Yes
Details: Particular challenge is considering how other factors are likely to change over time, such as demographics, urbanization and socio-economic development. The longer the projection, the more uncertain are changes in these and other factors
Scope of assessment: Identification of risks, assessment of impacts, identification of adaptation options, priorization of adaptation options
Details: Adaptation assessment: identify and prioritize policies and programmes to address current and projected health risks
Economic/Non-Economic losses incorporated: Non-Economic
Details: Only looks at health risk
Applicability for entire risk spectrum (from extreme weather events to slow onset processes): No
Details: Only EWE
Recommendations for Adaptation measures included in Climate Risk Assessment: Yes
Usefulness for political purposes: Very useful to inform health policies, especially because one step includes assessement of current policies
Applied by whom: World Health Organization Division of Pacific Technical Support, various governments with support of WHO
Open access: Yes