It is essential for the health community to better understand the role climate plays in determining the fundamentals of health – air, water and food – as well as its role as a driver of specific outcomes related to infectious disease, says Madeleine Thomson, who runs both the health and Africa programs at the IRI and is one of the brains behind the two-week training course.

“After all, health is fundamental to the way we understand human well-being, and a key indicator of sustainable development. Here, we like to think of climate as both a challenge and a resource,” she says.

Extreme weather events or prolonged droughts are often associated with negative outcomes, Thomson says, but by understanding climate and its associated impacts and potential predictability, decision makers can start responding proactively to climate challenges. In some situations, they can even get ahead of the game, she says. At IRI, we call it climate risk management.

Read more about the Summer Institute on Climate Information for Public Health here.

©2010 autogeno.us. All Rights Reserved.

• Unmet need in infectious disease research: social science (0)
• Politics makes for strange bug-fellows (0)