Advancing Climate-based Health Early Warning Systems

As climate variability and change continue to be a major challenge to society, there is an urgent need to forge multidisciplinary collaboration, to make climate science actionable. Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents in the world where there is a greater need to expand capacity to provide the best possible climate based early warning systems and to reduce risks associated with extreme weather events. While society has made great progress in reducing risks in agriculture, water management and food security, human health has emerged as a sector that requires investment to reduce climate related illnesses. This paper reports on the first Chapman Conference on Climate and Health for Africa, held at the AGU HQ in Washington DC, 12 – 15 June 2023. The conference attracted over 120 participants from 25 countries in Africa, the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, representing a wide range of stakeholders from academia, research, government, non-government organizations, and the private sector. This diverse participation covered the breadth of disciplines required to advance climate-based health early warning systems including climate, environment and health research, climate forecasting, public health, policy, and program management. The goal of the Conference was to take advantage of advances in climate forecasting to enable decision support services in human health. The objectives were to review the state of the knowledge of climate and health linkages, to stimulate discussion between scientists, program managers, and policy makers to raise awareness of the benefits of using climate forecasts to reduce disease risk, and to forge collaboration among stakeholders to enable climate informed health early warning systems. We discuss the conference recommendations formulated around fundamental questions that the conference addressed to advance climate-based health early warning systems, including gaps and limitations, next step for the conference, and sustainability for early warning systems.