Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: policy brief on humanitarian impacts

KEY MESSAGES:

• Apply a cross-sector and interdisciplinary approach to humanitarian and global health responses and local, regional and international collaborations
• Identify, highlight and respond to the disproportionate needs of vulnerable groups
• Better understand the connections between climate-sensitive diseases and climate variability to improve humanitarian planning and responses based on predicted increases in disease burdens in already-vulnerable populations
• Urgently enhance cholera preparedness and response in countries without surveillance capacity
• Develop monitoring and evaluation frameworks and better document risks and interventions with a climate change lens, update health needs assessments, analyze patterns and changes over time and contribute data to operational research
• Document environmental health-related and climate change effects on vulnerable populations to contribute to broader policy advocacy and legal initiatives
• Identify and reduce health disparities in urban slums, including through ensuring access to services and provision of mental health support
• Provide protection for people fleeing including through urging respect and development of people-centred policies
• Recognise that human needs outstrip the humanitarian response: as such, health considerations should be integrated into national and international mitigation planning to reduce suffering
• Invest funds in strengthened humanitarian responses
• Commit to efforts to rapidly and exponentially reduce the negative environmental impact of global health and humanitarian organizations, including MSF, in line with medical ethics.