Climate and health
.
We organised a 1-day Climate Change and Health Summit, in Accra, Ghana. The overall aim was to raise awareness on this urgent topic, a primary concern in Ghana, and West Africa.
Date: Tuesday 12 March 2024,
Location: UDS Guesthouse, Central Accra (in-person attendance is by invite-only)
Event chair: Professor Lydia Aziato, Vice Chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Volta Region, Ghana.
Hashtag for social media: #ghanaclimateandhealth
Background
The Summit aimed to bring together high-profile expert stakeholders from a range of disciplines and institutions from Ghana, the UK and more widely from West Africa, to engage in meaningful discussions on the impact of climate change on public health in Ghana and West Africa. There were presentations and discussions on the current evidence base, knowledge gaps, and priorities for policy and research. Attendees represented a range of stakeholders, including Ministries, Ghana Health Service, academia, NGOs, charities, advocates, and industry.
There will be written outputs and communications, as a legacy of the event, published later in 2024.
Organizing partners: Research, Statistics & Information Management at the Ghana Ministry of Health (Dr Wisdom Atiwoto); PACKS Africa (Kirchuffs Atengble, Ghana); University of Southampton (Michael Head, Jess Boxall, UK)
Photos from the event: Click here to see the full set of photos from the Summit. There will be an accompanying short video too, link to be added here in due course.
2024 policy brief on food insecurity and climate change
Exploring the impact of climate change on food insecurity and
health in a Last Mile district of rural Ghana. 2024.
Fully open-access. Click here for the report.
Very pleased to highlight a new policy brief, looking at prevalence of food insecurity in northern rural Ghana.
We carried out household surveys in Mion district, Northern Region of Ghana. Using validated questions, we found that food insecurity was 100%, thus all participants were food insecure to some level. The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity was 61.5% in Mion, with severe food insecurity at 26.4% (this is higher than the national Ghana numbers, and roughly equivalent to other low-income settings in West Africa). Participants had high knowledge of climate change, and suggested their local situation has been getting worse over the last five years.
Additionally, most participants had, on at least one occasion in the last year, been unable to reach their local health facility due to the climatic conditions such as extreme heat or rainfall (thus access to healthcare is an important aspect of climate change).
For more information about our work:
Dr Michael Head - m.head@soton.ac.uk
Ms Jess Boxall, j.l.boxall@soton.ac.uk