Climate Change, Infectious Diseases and Health: Connecting the Dots

By Cecile Lantican

April 23, 2012

Cecile Lantican, MID-BCC Country Coordinator Lao PDR, was among the 200 people from around the world who attended the Sixth International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA6) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Participants of the conference, held April 16-20, 2012, addressed the topic of "communicating community based adaptation" and participated in a three-day field trip to observe how local communities in different ecosystems have adapted to climate change.

(Editor's note: minor edits have been made to the author's original report)

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Like the highly pathogenic avian influenza and H1N1, climate change faces the challenge of how science and technology could be made available to and utilized by vulnerable and at risk communities so that they can manage and cope with the impact of adverse events.  

I was nominated by my office to attend the Sixth International Conference on Community-based Adaptation in Hanoi, Vietnam. My part in this forum was to share the community-level communication approaches that were tested and found useful to help communities address pandemic threats and emergencies.

Pandemic infectious diseases and climate change have things in common: both recognize no boundaries. They are events that are unusual and unexpected and may happen anytime. When they happen, there is a crisis that poses challenges beyond the organizational capacity of a particular country. There is an emergency that may create chaos. People are at risk. Both situations call for a whole-society approach to disaster preparedness.

Looking at the agenda, I saw that many development planners and practitioners would be talking about models developed, experiences and best practices on climate change program implementation. However, I noted that the climate change impact on health had the least discussion.

What made this conference a bit different from other international meetings I attended before was the inclusion of a field visit – an opportunity for participants to visit project sites that are living testimonies of climate change severely affecting the lives of people and communities.

Aha! I had the assumption that this site visit would show me the evidence, the dots directly connecting climate change and people’s health that essentially boost adaptation. I was thinking too – would this experience show me examples of local ability to address specific threat of infectious diseases pandemic as a component of a multi- hazard preparedness intervention?

I joined the group that visited Site 2, which covered three communes in Xuan Thuy district, Nam Dinh province, which is 150 kilometers away from Hanoi. The three coastal communes were Guiao Xuan, Guio Hai, and Guiao Phong. “Guiao” is a Vietnamese term meaning “near to,” as such these three communes were near each other and connected by a long stretch of the province’s coastline. Xuan Thuy district is known for its national park. This district is prone to the coastal impacts of extreme weather phenomena. During storms, the high tides and waves from the sea caused flooding, landslides, damaged dikes and culverts, and washed away rice fields and fish ponds. The Xuan Thuy national park is the core zone of the Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve. It is considered internationally important because it is a habitat for rare migratory birds. It has high biodiversity which makes it significant for local people whose livelihood relies on its rich resources.

The park has over a hundred species of benthos and zooplankton, a good culture ground for clams, and is a resource to women in the community, providing them income and food.

The booming local clam industry is providing income to women engaged in menial work and construction that used to be done only by men.

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