Health

As emissions of heat-trapping bases accumulate in our atmosphere, Earth's polar regions are warming more quickly than at lower latitudes. The rapid environmental changes that result from this warming can have a significant impact on the physical and mental health of rural Alaskans: unpredictable weather and changes in the seasons have made harvesting food more difficult, hazardous, and stressful. The climate-related challenge faced by Alaska’s tribal health system is to recognize new health stressors and community vulnerabilities, and then find healthy adaptation strategies in an increasingly uncertain future. Since 1997, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) has operated a non-profit, statewide system of health services for more than 143,000 Alaska Native Villages and Native American Tribes. In 2009, ANTHC established the Center for Climate and Health to help people understand climate change impacts on community health and work to address them. To help raise awareness about the connections between climate change and community health, ANTHC uses a variety of communication and education products including ClimeMap, The LEO Network, and an e-journal which provides weekly access to other map tools, updates, assessments, and bulletins.

For public health, climate change has gone from a possible concern to what appears to be an actual threat in just over two decades. When the health impacts of climate change were first broached in the health literature, they were referred to as a possible eventuality (Longstreth 1991). Climate change is now recognized by many as a significant public health threat with substantial current health burdens (Åström et al. 2013; McMichael et al. 2004) and additional impacts expected over time both domestically (Ebi et al. 2006b) and abroad (Campbell-Lendrum et al. 2007)."

"Climate change-influenced conditions and exposures that negatively impact health are expected to increase both in frequency and severity while new conditions and exposures are also expected, such as a vector-borne disease emerging in new areas. The need for public health to address the issues of climate change is more important than ever."

The Center for Indigenous Environmental Health Research (CIEHR) utilizes a community-based participatory research approach for all its projects. CIEHR partners with American Indian and Alaska Native communities to build capacity and evaluate the contribution of chemical and other environmental exposures to health inequities. The Center also supports efforts to address these threats by strengthening community resilience, increasing environmental health literacy, disseminating research findings, and informing program and policy development.

The training package consists of 17 standalone modules covering a range of topics that will prove very useful to build capacity of public health professionals who are involved in management of public health programmes impacted by climate change. The modules are also designed for ease of use by professionals from other sectors such as the environment, transport, disaster preparedness, etc., enabling them to understand the intersectoral nature of the issue and to address health impacts jointly with other sectors. One or more modules can be used as advocacy material as well as to orient different target audiences such as policymakers.

"Climate change impacts on human health span the trajectory of time—past, present, and future. The key finding from the Working Group II, Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that health impacts due to climate change have already occurred in the past, are currently occurring and will continue to occur, at least for the foreseeable future, even with immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions"

This Climate Change and Public Health Certificate course teaches about the effects of climate change on human health (through online didactics), and gives a chance to practice techniques to reduce those effects (with globally-available peers and mentors). All components of this training (like all NextGenU.org trainings) are free, including registration, learning, testing, and a certificate of completion.

"As noted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) [1], women, especially those in poverty, face higher risks and experience a greater burden of climate change impacts. This is notably true for health impacts, making climate change a risk multiplier for gender-based health disparities. Both men and women are at risk for amplified health impacts. Women have distinct health needs, such as nutritional demands during pregnancy, which places them at risk of suffering from climate-sensitive diseases. Men experience other risks, such as suicide and severe depression in the face of drought [2] and resulting agricultural losses, and may be at higher risk of drowning during severe weather [3]. Compounding women’s health vulnerabilities are cultural constructs, which amplify risk on a regional scale. Globally, a total of 1.3 billion people in low- and middle-income countries live below the poverty line, and 70% are female [4]. Yet while the interactions between poverty, gender-based social discrimination, and climate change threaten to amplify gender-based health disparities, women’s social roles and potential for agency afford opportunities for promoting solutions to sustainability, disaster risk reduction, and solutions to health threats. Ensuring that policies move beyond traditional separations of health, gender, and environment and embrace proactive and gender-based solutions is paramount to protecting women’s health and mobilizing their vast social potential to mitigate, adapt to, and respond to climate threats."

Climate change refers to change over time due to natural variability or as a result of human activity (IPCC, 2008). Alaska is experiencing a wide range of impacts from climate change and communities seek adaptive strategies that encourage wellness and sustainability. This report documents climate change impacts as described by community residents and climate change effects or potential effects as interpreted through the lens of public health. It is the seventh report in a series describing climate change in communities across Alaska, and the third report to focus on the Bristol Bay region. Assessment of climate change related health effects in Levelock, Alaska. As of 2012, there were about 88 residents, mostly Alaska Native people of Alutiiq and Yupik descent. Levelock is situated about 40 miles north from Naknek, 60 miles east of Dillingham and 278 miles southwest of Anchorage. Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, 2014. Download a PDF of the plan by clicking here.

Climate change refers to change over time due to natural variability or as a result of human activity (IPCC, 2008). Alaska is experiencing a wide range of impacts from climate change and communities seek adaptive strategies that encourage wellness and sustainability. This report documents climate change impacts as described by local people and climate change effects or potential effects as interpreted through the lens of public health. It is the seventh report in a series describing climate change across Alaska, and the second report to focus on the Bristol Bay region, the first being in the community of Pilot Point. To download a copy of the plan, click here.

Aassessment of climate change related health effects in Pilot Point, Alaska. Pilot Point is mostly Alaska Native People of Alutiiq and Yup'ik Eskimo decent, averaging about 64 to 100 residents. Pilot Point is located on the Northern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, on the east shore of Ugashik Bay. 2013, Download a PDF of the plan by clicking here.

There are two components to this document. The first component is the scope of described environmental change and its impacts in Port Heiden Summary Alaska. The second component is a list of priorities to be addressed that will help Port Heiden achieve its vision for the future. Each priority area incorporates local knowledge with available climate science and takes the expected future changes in to consideration.

Assessment of climate change related health effects in Wainwright a traditional Inupiat community located on the Chukchi Sea coast. Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, June 2014. To download a PDF of the plan, click here.

Listen in on the climate and health webinars, including those that are part of the Year of Climate Change and Health and our four-part series with ecoAmerica on how Climate Changes Health. These webinars outline how and why our health is being affected by climate change. They also shed light on what is being done to adapt to the changes and challenges that go along with climate change.