New IHACC Publication! Understanding weather and hospital admissions patterns to inform climate change adaptation strategies in the healthcare sector in Uganda

Citation:

Bishop-Williams K.E., Berrang-Ford, L., Sargeant, J., Pearl, D.L., Lwasa, S., Namanya, D.B., Edge, V.E., Cunsolo, A., IHACC Research Team, Bwindi Community Hospital, Huang, Y., Ford, J., Garcia, P., Harper, S.L. (2018) Understanding weather and hospital admissions patterns to inform climate change adaptation strategies in the healthcare sector in Uganda. Int Journal Environ Res Public Health 15(11): 2402.

Abstract

Background: Season and weather are associated with many health outcomes, which can influence hospital admission rates. We examined associations between hospital admissions (all diagnoses) and local meteorological parameters in Southwestern Uganda, with the aim of supporting hospital planning and preparedness in the context of climate change. 

Methods: Hospital admissions data and meteorological data were collected from Bwindi Community Hospital and a satellite database of weather conditions, respectively (2011 to 2014). Descriptive statistics were used to describe admission patterns. A mixed-effects Poisson regression model was fitted to investigate associations between hospital admissions and season, precipitation, and temperature.
 
Results: Admission counts were highest for acute respiratory infections, malaria, and acute gastrointestinal illness, which are climate-sensitive diseases. Hospital admissions were 1.16 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.31; p = 0.008) times higher during extreme high temperatures (i.e., >95th percentile) on the day of admission. Hospital admissions association with season depended on year; admissions were higher in the dry season than the rainy season every year, except for 2014. 

Discussion: Effective adaptation strategy characteristics include being low-cost and quick and practical to implement at local scales. Herein, we illustrate how analyzing hospital data alongside meteorological parameters may inform climate-health planning in low-resource contexts.

Panorama NERC Doctoral Training Partnership Opportunity with IHACC

IHACC is in the process of recruiting a PhD student through the Panorama NERC Doctoral Training Partnership competition, to work under supervision of Dr. Lea Berrang Ford at University of Leeds in the UK. The project is titled "Integrating local and Indigenous knowledge with climate modelling in Uganda: an 'ethno-climatology' approach".

The deadline for applications is January 7, 2019. For more details about the posting and to apply, click here! 

First IHACC Newsletter!

The first IHACC Newsletter has been published! Newsletters will be archived on the IHACC website, and can be accessed under the "Newsletter Archive” tab on the News page. You are able to subscribe to future issues through the subscribe link in the footer of this site, or through the newsletter itself.

Newsletters will be distributed on a quarterly basis - stay tuned for the second issue in early 2019!

IHACC Results Sharing Meeting in Nuevo Progreso

Written by Carol Zavaleta

National Indigenous leaders and IHACC Peru team members visited Nuevo Progreso for results dissemination and an informative workshop about food security adaptation to climate change.
Photo credit: Guillermo Lancha

A results dissemination meeting was held in the Shawi community of Nuevo Progreso, Peru, in August 2018. The meeting was facilitated by IHACC team members Carol Zavaleta and Guillermo Lancha, and attended by community members and leaders from the Peruvian National Indigenous Development Association (AIDESEP)[i].

Rocilda Nunta, a female youth Indigenous leader, and Indigenous Apu Richard Rubio (Amazonian Indigenous leaders are referred to by the Quechua word Apu), vice president of AIDESEP, expressed their appreciation to the community for receiving them, as it was their first visit to a Shawi community. Dr. Carol Zavaleta presented her PhD thesis findings about climate change, food, and nutritional security, while Guillermo Lancha, a local IHACC research assistant, facilitated interpretation.

During the meetings, Rocilda also shared information about her work experience on food security adaptation to climate change with Quechua women in the neighboring region of San Martin. She provided practical examples of how women can organize local crop production for both food and cash income, and emphasized the importance of promoting food and nutrition security via the utilization of local Indigenous crops and animals.

Richard Rubio, Indigenous Apu, tells stories about how his own community is adapting to new environmental and social changes.
photo credit: Guillermo Lancha

Indigenous Apu Richard Rubio spoke of the importance of integrating Indigenous knowledge and western scientific knowledge to foster water and food security adaptation, and explained how his own community was adapting to environmental and social changes (for example, using solar light to purify water as a response to environmental contamination).

Before closing the meeting, Rocilda and the Apu Richard expressed their interest in continued collaboration with the IHACC team, and their desire to participate in future events and promote food-related adaption from a local Indigenous perspective.

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[i] Note: There are more than fifty Amazon Indigenous groups in Peru and most of them are politically organized in 109 local Indigenous Federations. Every two to three years they participated in internal Indigenous elections to select National Representatives. National Indigenous representatives are part of the Indigenous National Counselling at AIDESEP.

New Publication! Participatory Scenario Planning for Climate Change

IHACC PhD student Melanie Flynn recently published an article in Environmental Science & Policy. Melanie conducted a systematic review of the literature to identify and evaluate how participatory scenario planning has been used in the Arctic. Congrats Mel!

CITATION: Flynn, M., Ford, J., Pearce, T., and Harper, S.L. (2018). Participatory scenario planning and climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research in the Arctic. Environmental Science & Policy. 79:45–53.

ABSTRACT: Participatory scenario planning (PSP) approaches are increasingly being used in research on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV). We identify and evaluate how PSP has been used in IAV studies in the Arctic, reviewing work published in the peer-reviewed and grey literature (n = 43). Studies utilizing PSP commonly follow the stages recognized as ‘best practice’ in the general literature in scenario planning, engaging with multiple ways of knowing including western science and traditional knowledge, and are employed in a diversity of sectors. Community participation, however, varies between studies, and climate projections are only utilized in just over half of the studies reviewed, raising concern that important future drivers of change are not fully captured. The time required to conduct PSP, involving extensive community engagement, was consistently reported as a challenge, and for application in Indigenous communities requires careful consideration of local culture, values, and belief systems on what it means to prepare for future climate impacts.