Climate Change, Infectious Diseases and Health: Connecting the Dots

By Cecile Lantican

April 23, 2012

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Xuan Thuy district supplies salt to the greater population of Hanoi. Salt making is traditionally dependent on sunshine. As the climate changes, production of salt is affected. Salt beds trap sea water, which solidifies under the extreme heat of the sun.

During such a production process, how can a salt maker withstand extreme heat?

Mrs. Houan’s family has been in salt making for the last 50 years. She said, climate change affects not only the salt formation in the salt beds but also her stamina to stay in field the whole day. Under extreme heat, she feels exhausted easily; she gets sick sometimes with fever and sore muscles. She suffers back pain. She needs to do this kind of work along with other women in the village. Men do not this work because they get more income from construction labor in other places.

She gets information from the radio on approaching low pressure areas and incoming typhoons. Weather forecasts help her decide when to trap salt water in the salt beds.

Climate change is happening. All populations are affected by climate change, but some are more vulnerable than others. Communities with limited, weak health infrastructure – mostly in developing countries – will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond.

Listening to people in a coastal community and having the opportunity to observe their way of life provided me insights on how they understood climate change in relation to their health. I began to find supporting evidence that upheld my hypothesis - people do not connect the dots between climate change and their physical well-being.

My observations were similar to the lessons we gained in communicating the risk of infectious diseases. People (particularly those who had not seen an outbreak) think that a H5N1 or H1N1 pandemic is a distant issue, as is climate change, or a shift in weather patterns as the Vietnamese called it; they will not do any harm to people’s health.

MID-BCC project is funded by USAID/RDMA.

Photos by Cecile Lantican 2012 | FHI 360

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