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Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India)
Recurrent heat waves, already a concern in rapidly growing and urbanizing South Asia, will very likely worsen in a warming world. Coordinated adaptation efforts can reduce heat’s adverse health impacts, however. To address this concern in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India), a coalition has been formed to de...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4024996/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24670386 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110403473 |
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author | Knowlton, Kim Kulkarni, Suhas P. Azhar, Gulrez Shah Mavalankar, Dileep Jaiswal, Anjali Connolly, Meredith Nori-Sarma, Amruta Rajiva, Ajit Dutta, Priya Deol, Bhaskar Sanchez, Lauren Khosla, Radhika Webster, Peter J. Toma, Violeta E. Sheffield, Perry Hess, Jeremy J. |
author_facet | Knowlton, Kim Kulkarni, Suhas P. Azhar, Gulrez Shah Mavalankar, Dileep Jaiswal, Anjali Connolly, Meredith Nori-Sarma, Amruta Rajiva, Ajit Dutta, Priya Deol, Bhaskar Sanchez, Lauren Khosla, Radhika Webster, Peter J. Toma, Violeta E. Sheffield, Perry Hess, Jeremy J. |
author_sort | Knowlton, Kim |
collection | PubMed |
description | Recurrent heat waves, already a concern in rapidly growing and urbanizing South Asia, will very likely worsen in a warming world. Coordinated adaptation efforts can reduce heat’s adverse health impacts, however. To address this concern in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India), a coalition has been formed to develop an evidence-based heat preparedness plan and early warning system. This paper describes the group and initial steps in the plan’s development and implementation. Evidence accumulation included extensive literature review, analysis of local temperature and mortality data, surveys with heat-vulnerable populations, focus groups with health care professionals, and expert consultation. The findings and recommendations were encapsulated in policy briefs for key government agencies, health care professionals, outdoor workers, and slum communities, and synthesized in the heat preparedness plan. A 7-day probabilistic weather forecast was also developed and is used to trigger the plan in advance of dangerous heat waves. The pilot plan was implemented in 2013, and public outreach was done through training workshops, hoardings/billboards, pamphlets, and print advertisements. Evaluation activities and continuous improvement efforts are ongoing, along with plans to explore the program’s scalability to other Indian cities, as Ahmedabad is the first South Asian city to address heat-health threats comprehensively. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4024996 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-40249962014-05-19 Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) Knowlton, Kim Kulkarni, Suhas P. Azhar, Gulrez Shah Mavalankar, Dileep Jaiswal, Anjali Connolly, Meredith Nori-Sarma, Amruta Rajiva, Ajit Dutta, Priya Deol, Bhaskar Sanchez, Lauren Khosla, Radhika Webster, Peter J. Toma, Violeta E. Sheffield, Perry Hess, Jeremy J. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Recurrent heat waves, already a concern in rapidly growing and urbanizing South Asia, will very likely worsen in a warming world. Coordinated adaptation efforts can reduce heat’s adverse health impacts, however. To address this concern in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India), a coalition has been formed to develop an evidence-based heat preparedness plan and early warning system. This paper describes the group and initial steps in the plan’s development and implementation. Evidence accumulation included extensive literature review, analysis of local temperature and mortality data, surveys with heat-vulnerable populations, focus groups with health care professionals, and expert consultation. The findings and recommendations were encapsulated in policy briefs for key government agencies, health care professionals, outdoor workers, and slum communities, and synthesized in the heat preparedness plan. A 7-day probabilistic weather forecast was also developed and is used to trigger the plan in advance of dangerous heat waves. The pilot plan was implemented in 2013, and public outreach was done through training workshops, hoardings/billboards, pamphlets, and print advertisements. Evaluation activities and continuous improvement efforts are ongoing, along with plans to explore the program’s scalability to other Indian cities, as Ahmedabad is the first South Asian city to address heat-health threats comprehensively. MDPI 2014-03-25 2014-04 /pmc/articles/PMC4024996/ /pubmed/24670386 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110403473 Text en © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Knowlton, Kim Kulkarni, Suhas P. Azhar, Gulrez Shah Mavalankar, Dileep Jaiswal, Anjali Connolly, Meredith Nori-Sarma, Amruta Rajiva, Ajit Dutta, Priya Deol, Bhaskar Sanchez, Lauren Khosla, Radhika Webster, Peter J. Toma, Violeta E. Sheffield, Perry Hess, Jeremy J. Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) |
title | Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) |
title_full | Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) |
title_fullStr | Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) |
title_full_unstemmed | Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) |
title_short | Development and Implementation of South Asia’s First Heat-Health Action Plan in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) |
title_sort | development and implementation of south asia’s first heat-health action plan in ahmedabad (gujarat, india) |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4024996/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24670386 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110403473 |
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