Imlisanen Jamir
As the world observes World Health Day on April 7 under the theme ‘Our Planet Our Health,’ it is important to recognise that the impact of climate change and its consequences on health and well-being are more severe on vulnerable populations.
Over the recent years, we have recorded impressive improvements in major health indicators such as a significant increase in life expectancy and a reduction in mortality from common preventable diseases. These gains are not uniform across the world’s populations.
Instead, they show stark evidence of significant inequity, with the poorest societies bearing the brunt. People in low and middle-income communities with lower spending on health and well-being suffer the most. Climate shocks disproportionally affect communities where health systems are not resilient and lack adaptive capacity.
In recent years, Nagaland has witnessed erratic weather activity, no doubt as a result of changing global climate patterns. At the local level, these changes are bound to affect food production, livelihood, water availability, cause flooding cause and landslides, along with environment related diseases. This combination of increased exposure to stresses and shocks and decreasing resilience makes climate change a major driver of disaster risks.
Climate change will multiply the ill-effects of underdevelopment and arrest or slow down progress in providing education, food, livelihood, preventive healthcare to contain infectious outbreaks, and sustainable development.
Health facilities meanwhile struggle to cope with the increased cases due to limitations in access, health workers, and essential supplies. The impact also comes with extra demands for adaptations of programs, which, in most cases, is associated with the need for additional resources to implement.
Health systems grappling to provide basic minimum health services often find themselves unprepared and incapable to respond to shocks. The global COVID-19 pandemic exposed some of these weaknesses.
But it also revealed how collective and collaborative efforts can be mobilized to come up with solutions in time frames that were once unimaginable.
The costs of global warming account for 1% to 3% of the total global world product, at least half of this being due to loss of life. Governments need to establish broad frameworks to ensure that sustainable development replaces the resource-hungry pollution-intensive development paradigm of the past.
Healthcare must be strengthened and early warning systems for weather events set up. Governments must focus on the well-being of people rather than consumeristic, profit-driven development strategies, to ensure that future generations can enjoy the planet.
It calls for multi-sector and multi-year interventions that address the root causes and alleviate the immediate suffering of the most vulnerable. Our health cannot be attained, with our planet ailing at such an alarming rate. New ways of working together are required to ensure a healthier tomorrow for us and the future generation.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
