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Health Impacts of Climate Change in Pacific Island Countries: A Regional Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptation Priorities
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Between 2010 and 2012, the World Health Organization Division of Pacific Technical Support led a regional climate change and health vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning project, in collaboration with health sector partners, in 13 Pacific island countries-Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. OBJECTIVE: We assessed the vulnerabilities of Pacific island countries to the health impacts of climate change and planned adaptation strategies to minimize such threats to health. METHODS: This assessment involved a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. The former included descriptive epidemiology, time series analyses, Poisson regression, and spatial modeling of climate and climate-sensitive disease data, in the few instances where this was possible; the latter included wide stakeholder consultations, iterative consensus building, and expert opinion. Vulnerabilities were ranked using a "likelihood versus impact" matrix, and adaptation strategies were prioritized and planned accordingly. RESULTS: The highest-priority climate-sensitive health risks in Pacific island countries included trauma from extreme weather events, heat-related illnesses, compromised safety and security of water and food, vector-borne diseases, zoonoses, respiratory illnesses, psychosocial ill-health, non-communicable diseases, population pressures, and health system deficiencies. Adaptation strategies relating to these climate change and health risks could be clustered according to categories common to many countries in the Pacific region. CONCLUSION: Pacific island countries are among the most vulnerable in the world to the health impacts of climate change. This vulnerability is a function of their unique geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics combined with their exposure to changing weather patterns associated with climate change, the health risks entailed, and the limited capacity of the countries to manage and adapt in the face of such risks. Citation: McIver L, Kim R, Woodward A, Hales S, Spickett J, Katscherian D, Hashizume M, Honda Y, Kim H, Iddings S, Naicker J, Bambrick H, McMichael AJ, Ebi KL. 2016. Health impacts of climate change in Pacific island countries: a regional assessment of vulnerabilities and adaptation priorities. Environ Health Perspect 124:1707-1714; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1509756.
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![Figure 2 Countries involved in WHO-supported climate change and health project in the Pacific (2010–2013) [Source: adapted from CartoGIS (2016), College of Asia and Pacific, The Australian National University, under terms of ShareAlike 3.0 Australia (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/legalcode). Some changes have been made to this figure: black triangles were added to indicate the project countries].](/paper-figures/6ffbc17bb41c43dab770abff5f274dc2/health-impacts-of-climate-change-in-pacific-island-countries-a-regional-figure-2.jpg)
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“Mental health was identified as a high-priority climate-sensitive health risk in eight out of the 13 countries [99].”
From Climate Change and Mental Health: A Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [99]
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IPCC--Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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BackgroundInfluentialThe Effects of Climate Change on Cardiac Health
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“These aspects include high fertility rates and overcrowding in atoll nations such as Kiribati which, combined with limited land area, low elevation, and the threat posed by rising seas, may lead to forced relocation, which brings with it a particular suite of health complications (McMichael et al. 2012; Berry et al. 2…”
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Reuveny, R. (2007) · Political Geography · doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.05.001 · Cited by 1,005 · cited 2×
“There is some evidence that this forced migration—both internal and external—is already taking place (Birk and Rasmussen 2014; Locke 2009), and the physical and psychosocial health consequences of this phenomenon must not be underestimated (Butler et al. 2014; Reuveny 2007).”
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BackgroundGlobalization, Climate Change, and Human Health
McMichael, A. J. (2013) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmra1109341 · Cited by 668 · cited 4×
“Environmental Health Perspectives • volume 124 | number 11 | November 2016 1707 ResearchA Section 508–conformant HTML version of this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1509756.”
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“A changing climate has significant and diverse impacts on human health (McMichael and Lindgren 2011; Woodward et al. 2014).”
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McMichael, C., Barnett, J., & McMichael, A. J. (2012) · Environmental Health Perspectives · doi:10.1289/ehp.1104375 · Cited by 339 · cited 2×
“These aspects include high fertility rates and overcrowding in atoll nations such as Kiribati which, combined with limited land area, low elevation, and the threat posed by rising seas, may lead to forced relocation, which brings with it a particular suite of health complications (McMichael et al. 2012; Berry et al. 2…”
BackgroundSelf-citation
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Metadata
- Authors
- McIver, L., Kim, R., Woodward, A., Hales, S., Spickett, J., Katscherian, D., Hashizume, M., Honda, Y., Kim, H., Iddings, S., Naicker, J., Bambrick, H., McMichael, A. J., & Ebi, K. L.
- Affiliations
- Australian National University (AU)
- World Health Organization (CH)
- University of Auckland (NZ)
- University of Otago (NZ)
- Curtin University (AU)
- Nagasaki University (JP)
- University of Tsukuba (JP)
- Seoul National University (KR)
- Western Sydney University (AU)
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- McIver, Lachlan
- ORCID
- Venue
- Environmental Health Perspectives
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2015-12-08
- Volume
- 124
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1707-1714
- ISSN
- 0091-6765 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-9924
- PMC
- PMC5089897
- OpenAlex
- W2423872746
- Cited by
- 238
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 8
- FWCI
- 9.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Health Perspectives (publishedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- QUT ePrints (Queensland University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- eSpace (Curtin University) (submittedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Seoul National University Open Repository (Seoul National University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- World Health Organization
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Environmental Impact
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Keywords
- health impacts of climate change, climate change vulnerability, climate change adaptation, Pacific Island countries, heat-related illness, vector-borne diseases, zoonoses, respiratory diseases, non-communicable diseases, food and water security, health system capacity, adaptation planning
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Physiological, Health Status Indicators, Humans, Pacific Islands, Socioeconomic Factors, Poisson Distribution, Climate Change, Public Health Surveillance
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