Tackling the Climate Crisis: Local Solutions for a Global Problem
The Harvard Climate Change and Health Collaborative hosted a second workshop on June 13th and 14th, 2024, in partnership with the Harvard Global Health Institute’s new Scholarly Working Groups program. Building on the foundational work of the inaugural workshop last September, the two-day event brought together a consortium of Harvard faculty, researchers, and global public health leaders to discuss strategies to safeguard health for all amidst the escalating climate crisis.
Epidemiologist and an infectious disease physician, Megan Murray (left), launched the workshop in partnership with the Harvard Global Health Institute. Also pictured: Dr. Louise C. Ivers (center), Faculty Director, Harvard Global Health Institute, and Dr. Satchit Balsari (right), Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
As the health impacts of climate change intensify globally, some communities face disproportionately severe threats to their well-being, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The global majority, particularly indigenous and rural communities where environmental degradation and infrastructure challenges are prevalent, bears significant health consequences due to climate change.
The Harvard Climate Change and Health Collaborative, led by Dr. Megan Murray, Rhonda Stryker and William Johnston Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School and Faculty Director for the Global Health Research Core in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine , gathered a global consortium of 40 climate and health experts, researchers, and community advocates from 14 different countries and regions, representing a range of perspectives from medicine, law, the humanities, environmental science, and community health, to explore integrated solutions for climate resilience.
“Climate change is indeed a global problem. But, as experts at our workshop pointed out, helping local communities with targeted interventions and support could be an effective solution to alleviate its harmful health impacts,” said Dr. Murray.
Customizing Tools for Specific Communities
Attendees shared the lessons learned from their ongoing projects targeted to help vulnerable communities cope with climate health impacts, including sensors that monitor heat in real time to protect vulnerable populations from extreme heat events, application tools ensuring aid reaches the most affected areas swiftly, and educational toolkits focused on preparing frontline clinic responses for climate-related emergencies.
One exciting tool mentioned was Virscan, a new tool that allows researchers to test over 1,000 viruses using a single drop of blood, which helps physicians determine what viruses a person has been infected with over the course of many years with a single test.
Experts agreed that these initiatives have the potential to significantly help mitigate issues that communities on the frontlines of climate change are facing.
Storytelling with Integrity and Authenticity
Dr. Stuart Harris, doctor and professor specializing in wilderness medicine suggested that by highlighting “the stories of cultural humility, robustness, and environmental awareness on the micro-scale”, broader audiences everywhere could learn from each other through their shared experiences and knowledge, and ultimately building solutions from a human-to-human perspective.
Critical in sharing these stories is ensuring that voices from marginalized communities are elevated. Health interventions must consider the local context to be effective and acceptable. To do so successfully and equitably, workshop members agreed that partnerships where power is shared, especially with indigenous communities, are essential.
Corina Qaagraq Kramer, an Inupiaq from the Native Village of Kotzebue and social medicine faculty at Siamit, commented on the importance of “legitimizing” the expertise of community members, noting that “we [Indigenous community members] essentially have our own PhDs.” By incorporating local knowledge and perspectives, she explained, research can better address climate challenges that benefit communities.
Translating Scientific Knowledge into Actionable Community Practices
A key challenge to building climate resilience in local communities is how to effectively use, update, and transfer scientific knowledge into actionable community practices while respecting and enhancing community traditions.
“It requires a completely different intellectual framework to approach this issue,” said Dr. Murray.
Researchers agreed that health systems, both locally and globally, needed to be more adaptive.
“We are forced to think about adaptation early on in the design of our health systems, starting from the data collection process,” noted Satchit Balsari, Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
While the necessary tools exist, data sharing from local governments must be affordable and accessible. Instead of solely reacting to natural disasters, Dr. Balsari pointed out there is a pressing need for the focus to shift to proactive planning, including obtaining access to the data, educating healthcare professionals on climate impacts, and informing individuals within these communities ahead of time.
Next Steps
The engaging discussion at the workshop around shared goals, interests, and next steps aligned participants’ efforts and helped envision areas for future collaboration. The workshop group remains committed to working together through a series of quarterly meetings and partnership on upcoming project proposals. Through open dialogue on building long-term climate resilience, the workshop’s overarching aim is clear: to bring together science, expertise, and local knowledge in an atmosphere of mutual understanding, to develop climate solutions that are both effective and sustainable.
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About the Harvard Global Health Institute Scholarly Working Groups
The Harvard Global Health Institute’s Scholarly Working Groups are designed to encourage a collaborative environment, promote inter-faculty gatherings, and explore and accelerate research areas in topics critical to the advancement of “Health for All”. Each Scholarly Working Group includes faculty from at least two schools across Harvard University. Through these working groups, we aim to catalyze ideas, inspire the writing of grants, policy briefs, or working papers, or build networks to advance a program of work.
About the Harvard Global Health Institute
The Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) is an interfaculty initiative that facilitates collaboration across the Harvard community and partners worldwide to advance global health equity. We tackle the greatest health challenges of our time through innovative transdisciplinary research, education, and partnerships that build knowledge and drive positive change in global health. Our work is grounded in the fact that researchers, scholars, care deliverers, and communities must inform each other’s work to transform global health at every level.
The Harvard Global Health Institute held its 2nd Annual Global Health Symposium on April 18th, 2024 in Cambridge, MA and virtually. Under the theme of Partnerships in Action, the full-day event featured over 20 speakers from Harvard University and around the world, who were joined by more than 100 Harvard students, faculty, and staff in person, and another 800 virtual attendees spanning 90 countries.
The 2024 HGHI Burke Climate and Health Fellowship will open in April 2024! The 2-year fellowship program, a partnership between the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and the Harvard Global Health Institute, offers financial support for eligible research fellows, post-doctoral scholars, and early career faculty pursuing scholarly research at the intersection of climate change and global health.
