Active Climate, Earth & Environment Pregnancy, Children & Inherited Conditions

Accelerating Action for Extreme Heat and Health

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation World Health Organization, Switzerland
Funding £3.2M
Period Dec 2022 — Dec 2027

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Heat kills more people each year in low- and middle-income countries than any other weather-related disaster, yet most of those deaths are preventable. This project builds the partnerships, tools, and expertise needed to turn that knowledge into action. The problem is a gap between what scientists know about extreme heat and what city planners, health workers, and engineers actually do about it. A heatwave warning means little if a clinic has no protocol for treating heatstroke, or if a housing development is built with dark roofs and no shade. The project targets precisely this translation gap, focusing on vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries where heat risks are highest and adaptive capacity lowest. If successful, the project will create practical, evidence-based guidance and case studies that local decision-makers can use immediately. It will also expand the network of experts beyond health and climate science to include architects, engineers, and urban designers—the people who shape the buildings and streets where heat exposure happens. By strengthening regional partnerships and improving access to technical resources through platforms like GHHIN.org, the work aims to make heat-health protection a routine part of planning, not a crisis response.

View original technical description
Within the overall Wellcome Trust-WHO strategic partnership on climate change and health, this project aims to significantly strengthen multidisciplinary capacity and partnerships to address the health risks of extreme heat in vulnerable populations, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). In close cooperation with the World Meteorological Organization and the co-sponsored initiative, the Global Heat Health Information Network, this project proposes to expand regional-level partnerships and capacity; to build community across world regions and new stakeholder groups (e.g. engineering, design and architecture); to develop new technical and evidence based tools, case studies, and guidance on heat and health; and to scale up awareness and accessibility to technical information by enhancing existing web-resource platforms (e.g. GHHIN.org and ClimaHealth.info). These activities will help deliver the following expected outcomes: - Strengthened interdisciplinary partnerships, capacity, and access to expertise through dialogues and peer- learning; - Enhanced regional interdisciplinary and institutional capacity to address extreme heat risks to health; - Accelerated translation of evidence to action on health risks of extreme heat and effective solutions to protect vulnerable populations in LMICs; - Increased awareness of climate change and extreme heat risks to health as a result of effective advocacy, community building, and access to technical resources.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Transforming Climate Science and Services for Health
Heat Indicators for Global Health: Surveillance, Early Warning Systems and adaptation-mitigation actions to reduce heat impacts in pregnant women, infants and health workers in the EU and Africa (HIGH Horizons)
Heat Indicators for Global Health (HIGH Horizons): monitoring, Early Warning Systems and health facility interventions for pregnant and postpartum women, infants and young children and health workers
Making a silent killer visible: Catalysing policy action to protect school students’ health and wellbeing from extreme heat amidst a changing climate in Latin America
Developing solutions for temperature-related health impacts in the UK

Original classification

Discretionary Award

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.