Offers information for Ministers on topical health priorities. This book provides comprehensive information on the many important health challenges facing Commonwealth citizens in the 21st century resulting from climate change. It offers an overview of the issues and explains the thinking in both the private and public sectors.

Produced for the annual Commonwealth Health Ministers' Meeting, the Commonwealth Health Ministers' Update 2011 is a resource for ministers on topical health priorities. The theme for the 2011 Meeting is "Non-communicable diseases - A priority for the Commonwealth." This accompanying Update provides comprehensive and essential information on the non-communicable disease epidemic: * An overview of non-communicable diseases in the Commonwealth * Prevalence reports from Commonwealth regions * How Commonwealth countries are responding to noncommunicable diseases * How to protect vulnerable groups within country populations * Case studies of key initiatives to control non-communicable diseases * The economic impact of non-communicable diseases A special reference section summarizes the latest information on non-communicable diseases in the Commonwealth and the responses by member countries.

This book is the first to present a regional analysis of climate change and human health, focusing on geographically and socio-economically distinct countries of South and Southeast Asia. It has a major focus on India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal and Taiwan. Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to human health. lt represents a range of environmental hazards and will affect populations in both the developed and developing countries. In particular, it affects the regions where the current burden of climate-sensitive diseases are high, which is the case in South and Southeast Asian countries.

Climate Health Risks in Megacities: Sustainable Management and Strategic Planning courageously confronts the immense challenges of alleviating climate change and takes the initiative to layout an agenda that calls for action in the rapidly changing landscape of our global climate. This guide provides a constructive methodology for developing and implementing risk management and operational continuity management systems to climate change effects on urban populations. It addresses key issues such as physical location, proper sanitation, food security and vector-borne diseases against the backdrop of climate change, and then model its effect on the urban dwellers. The author also reveals the benefits of implementing a unique risk management approach to combat global threats and focuses on building urban resilience in the face of disasters. Prepared with a comprehensive and forward-thinking style, this book draws on indispensable case studies in key megacities like New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, London, Mumbai, and Lagos, and links researchers, scientists, city’s mayors, environmentalists, policy-makers and world leaders from central areas to review, reflect, and expound on future directions.

This book focuses on the risks that climate change poses for the health sector. It discusses the current vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive diseases, the resultant mortality and morbidity in human populations, the projected risks in connection with increasing global warming, and the options for tackling the adverse impacts of climate change. Adapting to climate change so as to effectively address the risks for and adverse impacts on the health sector requires an in-depth understanding of current deficits in health sector preparedness for climate-sensitive illnesses, as well as future plans and programs for increasing adaptive capacity and building resilience. The book situates climate and health adaptation concerns in the broader context of developing countries, providing insights that can be useful for other countries as well, helping them further their health adaptation efforts. In India, poverty and inadequate access to basic water, health and sanitation services combine with climate-related events to adversely impact health outcomes. Three case studies on the occurrence of heat stress, flooding, and extreme cyclonic events in India are presented along with a critical assessment of the level of preparedness and capacity of healthcare facilities to respond to the threats posed by climate change. The book presents the key challenges faced in reducing the risks posed to the health sector by climatic factors, and highlights the most important opportunities for promoting resilience and adaptation to achieve sustainable development. Dr. Dasgupta’s excellent book reviews the health risks of climate change, outlines an operational framework for health adaptation, and describes the socioeconomic context for adaptation in India. - Kristie L. EbiProfessor, Departments of Global Health, and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, USA This pioneering work contributes to an the understanding of the preparedness in India to manage health risks from such (climate) change on the basis of detailed data analysis, both from large national surveys and contextualized field based surveys.- Kanchan ChopraFormer Director and Professor, Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi, India/div

The objective of the present edited book is to encompass studies from both developed and developing countries of Asia, Africa Europe, and Americas, to understand and present a comparative scenario of the climate change and other environmental determinants of health and disease in geographically diversified countries. Environment and health perspective dates back to Hippocrates treatise written 400 B.C.E. In his book On Airs, Waters and Places, Hippocrates described diseases as associated with environmental conditions, “Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly, should proceed thus: in the first place to consider the seasons of the year, and what effects each of them produces for they are not at all alike, but differ much from themselves in regard to their changes. Then the winds, the hot and the cold, especially such as are common to all countries, and then such as are peculiar to each locality. We must also consider the qualities of the waters, for as they differ from one another in taste and weight, so also do they differ much in their qualities. In the same manner, when one comes into a city to which he is a stranger, he ought to consider its situation, how it lies as to the winds and the rising of the sun; for its influence is not the same whether it lies to the north or the south, to the rising or to the setting sun”. There has been a greater emphasis in the last four decades on understanding environmental factors which affect human health, after United Nations established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 aimed at to evaluate research on changing environmental condition, particularly climate change and its impacts on human wellbeing, including human health, as consequences of extreme heat waves conditions, sea level rise, forced migration, air pollution, droughts, and wildfires. From these studies, risk levels of vulnerable populations and regions can be assessed and level of resilience of healthcare infrastructure that may be used in environmental health policy and equity of these countries.