Integrating Climate and Health Data to Support Informed Decision-making

Climate change adds into the persisting challenges to the global health system. It brings more intense and frequent climate events that worsen living conditions and increase the risk of death and diseases. This reality underscores the urgency to integrate climate and health data to support informed decision-making in the health sector.

How Climate Affects Global Health

Roughly 3.6 billion people live in areas most likely to feel the impacts of climate change. Climate change can increase the risk of deaths, noncommunicable diseases, the emergence and spread of infectious diseases, and health emergencies. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change can cause 250,000 additional deaths annually between 2030 and 2050. Furthermore, the crisis can cause between 2–4 billion USD in direct damage to the health sector annually by 2030.

Therefore, mitigating climate risk in the health sector is essential to avoid further damage. This calls for high-quality data integration between climate and health at local, national, and international levels for more informed decision-making in the health sector.

Integrating Data Between Agencies

Climate and health connections have often been emphasized in global action plans and meetings. The topic was endorsed by global leaders during COP28, citing the severe health implications of the crisis and actions needed to address them.

Meanwhile, the WHO and WMO, agencies responsible for health and climate, declared commitments to collaborate and safeguard the health sector from climate risks by signing a Collaboration Framework on Climate, Environment and Health in 2018. An implementation plan document was published in 2023 detailing strategies to achieve this goal.

In September 2024, the WHO, WMO, and partner organizations convened in Geneva to discuss the advancement of climate and health data integration. WMO Deputy Secretary General Ko Barrett said, “By combining the expertise of the meteorological community with that of the health community, there is tremendous potential to support the most vulnerable.”

The meeting called for enhanced collaboration between health and meteorological actors to create robust support tools for informed decisions. While the WHO and WMO already have several existing platforms and initiatives, such as the ClimaHealth website and the Health Data Collaborative, the adoption of climate-informed health decision support systems at local and national levels remains limited.

Therefore, improving data availability and accessibility, as well as matching data standards, can bridge the gap in climate and health information systems.

Better Synchronization Between Climate and Health

Climate mitigation and adaptation must go simultaneously with the efforts to halt the crisis from worsening. As a vital sector, the global health system must be prepared to withstand the current and possible impacts of climate change in the following years.

Therefore, creating an integrated system between climate and health, rather than individual and separate actions, is extremely crucial right now. This requires awareness, commitment, strategic investments, and concrete actions from governments and organizations at all levels, to create standardized protocols and infrastructures for a resilient health system for all.

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