Public health | Is Asia’s healthcare workforce ready for climate change?

Healthcare workers are on the front lines of the climate fight. As populations, especially in Asia, face the harsh reality of a warming planet, it is essential to have an adequately trained, motivated and well-equipped healthcare workforce. But there is a danger that essential resources are currently insufficient, and that people’s health, especially vulnerable and marginalized populations, will suffer.

Increasingly intense and frequent extreme weather events have increased Southeast Asia’s vulnerability to disasters and climate change. They have contributed to rising deaths, exacerbated health risks, widened health inequalities and put pressure on healthcare systems.

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Countries such as the Philippines, one of the most disaster-prone countries in the region, and Indonesia, whose capital Jakarta is the fastest-sinking megacity in the world, face major challenges.

Extreme weather has increased the risk of disasters, such as last month’s floods and landslides in West Sumatra and Demak-Kudus, which affected more than 71,000 people and displaced more than 15,000 children from their homes.

Apart from such extreme weather events, persistent air pollution, heat-related deaths, increasing malnutrition due to food insecurity, escalating water scarcity and poor sanitary conditions, in addition to the spread of infectious diseases, are of concern.

Women, children and the elderly are disproportionately affected by some of these problems – with heat-related deaths hitting women and the elderly, and malnutrition hitting young children hardest. The rising number of mental health problems, especially among young people in the region, compounds these challenges.

Addressing these urgent threats to climate health requires a healthcare workforce capable of identifying, responding to, and managing emergencies. The workforce will also need to be able to cope with the evolving health risks and changing disease patterns caused by climate change.

Lack of resources and other systemic problems

While dedicated healthcare workers toil tirelessly to provide essential health care around the world, especially during climate-induced emergencies, systemic gaps and limited resources often hinder their ability to effectively address climate impacts on public health.

Currently, a majority of the healthcare workforce, especially in the Global South, works with limited emergency response and disease surveillance infrastructure, and some awareness of climate-related health risks.

Challenges remain around inadequate training and resources, fragmented deployment of personnel and coordination mechanisms, and insufficient health interventions tailored to climate vulnerabilities. These challenges are particularly acute in rural and remote areas where health inequalities already exist. This calls for targeted investments in healthcare workforce training and capacity building to cultivate a climate-resilient healthcare workforce and thus strengthen the overall response and preparedness of healthcare systems.

Frameworks are in place, but not implemented consistently

The World Health Organization’s “Operational Framework for Building Climate-Resilient and Low-carbon Healthcare Systems” serves as a guiding tool for assessing and strengthening the resilience of healthcare systems to climate change. It highlights the importance of developing a climate-resilient healthcare workforce and calls on the healthcare sector to lead efforts to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions. The framework also focuses on promoting action across sectors to raise awareness and improve communication about the health impacts of climate change.

A key element of the framework is for countries to develop national health adaptation plans, embedded in their multi-sectoral national adaptation plans (NAPs). This is a broader process set up by the United Nations to improve the resilience of the entire economy to climate change. climate change.

The recent WHO study found that while all nineteen NAPs submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2020 highlighted health as a priority sector vulnerable to climate change, the extent to which climate and health risks were addressed varied.

Sixteen of these plans include actions for the health workforce, indicating that the need to strengthen the health workforce in the face of climate change is recognized, at least by this group of predominantly low- and middle-income countries.

Building on the lessons of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role of healthcare workers, both in clinical and non-clinical settings, as trusted intermediaries and frontline responders.

Health workers perform a variety of roles ranging from health promotion and disease prevention, including vaccine administration, to protecting sexual and reproductive health, especially in rural and remote areas. When the pandemic emerged, it affected every aspect of healthcare, from increased demand, to supply chain disruption, to illness and death of healthcare workers, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

These challenges we have faced and the lessons we have learned during the COVID-19 pandemic provide valuable insights into the complexities of addressing the impacts of climate change.

One parallel lies in the fatigue of healthcare workers

The prolonged duration and intensity of the pandemic has exacerbated burnout among frontline workers, highlighting the importance of protecting their physical and mental health. Inadequate physical and mental protection during the pandemic has also exposed healthcare workers to increased health risks and deaths, underscoring the need for robust safety measures.

Labor market challenges during COVID-19 are also gendered, with women bearing a disproportionate burden of the consequences of the crisis.

With more than 70 percent of the global healthcare population being women, healthcare workers have faced unique challenges, including greater exposure to infections due to their greater representation in frontline roles. They often juggle caregiving responsibilities at home, putting them at greater risk for burnout and mental health problems.

Existing systemic gender-related disparities in volunteer versus paid roles on health teams and in leadership positions within the healthcare sector have also been exacerbated by the pandemic. Women have faced increased risk of gender-based violence both within and outside of healthcare, adding an additional layer of vulnerability to their experiences.

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At a critical time of building a stronger post-COVID-19 and confronting the escalating climate crisis, it is more clear than ever that if governments and healthcare systems prioritize strengthening the climate resilience of the healthcare workforce, they will be better equipped to effectively navigate and adapt to the rapidly changing health risks posed by climate change.

The global health crisis caused by the climate crisis underlines the urgent need for action. Cultivating a resilient healthcare workforce is critical to effectively addressing climate-induced public health challenges and mitigating the profound impacts on the most vulnerable populations worldwide.