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Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience

Background: Climate change is expected to have a range of health impacts, some of which are already apparent. Public health adaptation is imperative, but there has been little discussion of how to increase adaptive capacity and resilience in public health systems. Objectives: We explored possible ex...

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Autores principales: Hess, Jeremy J., McDowell, Julia Z., Luber, George
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279431/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21997387
http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1103515
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author Hess, Jeremy J.
McDowell, Julia Z.
Luber, George
author_facet Hess, Jeremy J.
McDowell, Julia Z.
Luber, George
author_sort Hess, Jeremy J.
collection PubMed
description Background: Climate change is expected to have a range of health impacts, some of which are already apparent. Public health adaptation is imperative, but there has been little discussion of how to increase adaptive capacity and resilience in public health systems. Objectives: We explored possible explanations for the lack of work on adaptive capacity, outline climate–health challenges that may lie outside public health’s coping range, and consider changes in practice that could increase public health’s adaptive capacity. Methods: We conducted a substantive, interdisciplinary literature review focused on climate change adaptation in public health, social learning, and management of socioeconomic systems exhibiting dynamic complexity. Discussion: There are two competing views of how public health should engage climate change adaptation. Perspectives differ on whether climate change will primarily amplify existing hazards, requiring enhancement of existing public health functions, or present categorically distinct threats requiring innovative management strategies. In some contexts, distinctly climate-sensitive health threats may overwhelm public health’s adaptive capacity. Addressing these threats will require increased emphasis on institutional learning, innovative management strategies, and new and improved tools. Adaptive management, an iterative framework that embraces uncertainty, uses modeling, and integrates learning, may be a useful approach. We illustrate its application to extreme heat in an urban setting. Conclusions: Increasing public health capacity will be necessary for certain climate–health threats. Focusing efforts to increase adaptive capacity in specific areas, promoting institutional learning, embracing adaptive management, and developing tools to facilitate these processes are important priorities and can improve the resilience of local public health systems to climate change.
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spelling pubmed-32794312012-02-17 Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience Hess, Jeremy J. McDowell, Julia Z. Luber, George Environ Health Perspect Review Background: Climate change is expected to have a range of health impacts, some of which are already apparent. Public health adaptation is imperative, but there has been little discussion of how to increase adaptive capacity and resilience in public health systems. Objectives: We explored possible explanations for the lack of work on adaptive capacity, outline climate–health challenges that may lie outside public health’s coping range, and consider changes in practice that could increase public health’s adaptive capacity. Methods: We conducted a substantive, interdisciplinary literature review focused on climate change adaptation in public health, social learning, and management of socioeconomic systems exhibiting dynamic complexity. Discussion: There are two competing views of how public health should engage climate change adaptation. Perspectives differ on whether climate change will primarily amplify existing hazards, requiring enhancement of existing public health functions, or present categorically distinct threats requiring innovative management strategies. In some contexts, distinctly climate-sensitive health threats may overwhelm public health’s adaptive capacity. Addressing these threats will require increased emphasis on institutional learning, innovative management strategies, and new and improved tools. Adaptive management, an iterative framework that embraces uncertainty, uses modeling, and integrates learning, may be a useful approach. We illustrate its application to extreme heat in an urban setting. Conclusions: Increasing public health capacity will be necessary for certain climate–health threats. Focusing efforts to increase adaptive capacity in specific areas, promoting institutional learning, embracing adaptive management, and developing tools to facilitate these processes are important priorities and can improve the resilience of local public health systems to climate change. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences 2011-10-13 2012-02 /pmc/articles/PMC3279431/ /pubmed/21997387 http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1103515 Text en http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ Publication of EHP lies in the public domain and is therefore without copyright. All text from EHP may be reprinted freely. Use of materials published in EHP should be acknowledged (for example, ?Reproduced with permission from Environmental Health Perspectives?); pertinent reference information should be provided for the article from which the material was reproduced. Articles from EHP, especially the News section, may contain photographs or illustrations copyrighted by other commercial organizations or individuals that may not be used without obtaining prior approval from the holder of the copyright.
spellingShingle Review
Hess, Jeremy J.
McDowell, Julia Z.
Luber, George
Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience
title Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience
title_full Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience
title_fullStr Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience
title_full_unstemmed Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience
title_short Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience
title_sort integrating climate change adaptation into public health practice: using adaptive management to increase adaptive capacity and build resilience
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279431/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21997387
http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1103515
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