Environment & Health

Global environmental change has significant implications for human health, particularly in low-income settings. National and local indicators are needed to monitor the impacts of environmental changes on population health. HDSS sites provide the best longitudinal data for monitoring health in Low-and Middle- Income Countries to understand the associations between environmental changes and health outcomes. The Environment and Health working group seeks to highlight the relationship between climate change mortality and migration of rural populations.

In 2013, INDEPTH secured a grant from UNESCO Ghana to implement a project on climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Sahel and West Africa. The inter-sectoral project, on which INDEPTH will collaborate with UNESCO Ghana and Accra University College of Communication (AUCC), is designed to link existing climate change networks to strengthen the capacity of local communities to address the challenges of climate change at the sub-regional and national level, with a focus on mitigation and adaptation. Burkina Faso (Sahel) and Ghana (West Africa) are the core sites of the project activities. 

A workshop held in Accra, Ghana in September 2013 brought together environmental experts including hydrologists, water resources experts, local stakeholders and policy-makers with environmental media practitioners to ensure that scientific knowledge can be transferred to the national and local levels. Subsequently, core funds were pledged by INDEPTH for a continuation programme that will be coordinated by AUCC. From this was conceived "The Journalists for Climate Change Awareness Group".