Climate change health assessment: a novel approach for Alaska Native communities.

OBJECTIVES: Develop a process for assessing climate change impacts on public health that identifies climate-health vulnerabilities and mechanisms and encourages adaptation. STUDY DESIGN: Multi-stakeholder, participatory, qualitative research. METHODS: A Climate Change Health Assessment (CCHA) was developed that involved 4 steps: (1) scoping to describe local conditions and engage stakeholders; (2) surveying to collect descriptive and quantitative data; (3) analysis to evaluate the data; and (4) planning to communicate findings and explore appropriate actions with community members. The health effects related to extreme weather, thinning ice, erosion, flooding, thawing permafrost and changing conditions of water and food resources were considered. RESULTS: The CCHA process was developed and performed in north-west Arctic villages. Refinement of the process took place in Point Hope, a coastal Inupiat village that practices whaling and a variety of other traditional subsistence harvest practices. Local observers identified climate change impacts that resulted in damaged health infrastructure, compromised food and water security and increased risk of injury. Priority health issues included thawing traditional ice cellars, diminished quality of the community water source and increased safety issues related to sea ice change. The CCHA increased awareness about health vulnerability and encouraged informed planning and decision-making. CONCLUSION: A community-scale assessment process guided by observation-based data can identify climate health impacts, raise awareness and encourage adaptive actions, thereby improving the response capacity of communities vulnerable to climate change.

Climate change and human health: infrastructure impacts to small remote communities in the north.

In northern regions, climate change can include changes in precipitation magnitude and frequency, reductions in sea ice extent and thickness, and climate warming and cooling. These changes can increase the frequency and severity of storms, flooding, or erosion; other changes may include drought or degradation of permafrost. Climate change can result in damage to sanitation infrastructure resulting in the spread of disease or threatening a community's ability to maintain its economy, geographic location and cultural tradition, leading to mental stress. Through monitoring of some basic indicators communities can begin to develop a response to climate change. With this information, planners, engineers, health care professionals and governments can begin to develop approaches to address the challenges related to climate change.

The potential impact of climate on human exposure to contaminants in the Arctic.

Many northern indigenous populations are exposed to elevated concentrations of contaminants through traditional food and many of these contaminants come from regions exterior to the Arctic. Global contaminant pathways include the atmosphere, ocean currents, and river outflow, all of which are affected by climate. In addition to these pathways, precipitation, animal availability, UV radiation, cryosphere degradation and human industrial activities in the North are also affected by climate change. The processes governing contaminant behaviour in both the physical and biological environment are complex and therefore, in order to understand how climate change will affect the exposure of northern people to contaminants, we must have a better understanding of the processes that influence how contaminants behave in the Arctic environment. Furthermore, to predict changes in contaminant levels, we need to first have a good understanding of current contaminant levels in the Arctic environment, biota and human populations. For this reason, it is critical that both spatial and temporal trends in contaminant levels are monitored in the environment, biota and human populations from all the Arctic regions.

Arctic health policy: contribution of scientific data.

In Western Hemisphere arctic regions, scientific findings in humans, wildlife, and the environment have resulted in major governmental policy formulations. Government policy resulted in establishment of an effective international organization to address scientifically identified problems, including health disparities in arctic indigenous populations. Western scientific data and indigenous knowledge from initial international programs led to international agreements restricting certain persistent organic pollutants. In recent years, scientific data, and indigenous traditional knowledge, have resulted in governmental policy in the United States, Canada, and Nordic countries that includes the full participation of indigenous residents in defining research agendas, interpreting data, communicating information, and local community policy formulation.