| An Approach for Assessing Human Health Vulnerability and Public Health Interventions to Adapt to Climate Change Kristie L. Ebi,1 R. Sari Kovats,2 and Bettina Menne3 1ESS, LLC, Alexandria, Virginia, USA; 2Department of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom; 3World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, European Centre for Environment and Health, Rome, Italy Abstract
Assessments of the potential human health impacts of climate change are needed to inform the development of adaptation strategies, policies, and measures to lessen projected adverse impacts. We developed methods for country-level assessments to help policy makers make evidence-based decisions to increase resilience to current and future climates, and to provide information for national communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The steps in an assessment should include the following: a) determine the scope of the assessment ; b) describe the current distribution and burden of climate-sensitive health determinants and outcomes ; c) identify and describe current strategies, policies, and measures designed to reduce the burden of climate-sensitive health determinants and outcomes ; d) review the health implications of the potential impacts of climate variability and change in other sectors ; e) estimate the future potential health impacts using scenarios of future changes in climate, socioeconomic, and other factors ; f) synthesize the results ; and g) identify additional adaptation policies and measures to reduce potential negative health impacts. Key issues for ensuring that an assessment is informative, timely, and useful include stakeholder involvement, an adequate management structure, and a communication strategy. Key words: adaptation, climate change, climate variability, human health methods, vulnerability. Environ Health Perspect 114:1930–1934 (2006) . doi:10.1289/ehp.8430 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 11 July 2006]
This article is part of the mini-monograph "Climate Change and Human Health: National Assessments of Impacts and Adaptation." Address correspondence to K.L. Ebi, ESS, LLC, 5249 Tancreti Lane, Alexandria, VA 22304 USA. Telephone: (703) 304-6126. Fax: (571) 227-7299. E-mail: krisebi@essllc.org We acknowledge the participants in the World Health Organization (WHO) /Health Canada workshops who provided their perspective on human health vulnerabilities to climate variability and change and thus contributed to the development of the WHO publication "Methods of Assessing Human Health Vulnerability and Public Health Adaptation to Climate Change" (Kovats et al. 2003b) . We also thank Health Canada for their financial contribution. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 17 June 2005 ; accepted 15 December, 2005.
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