Project Summary

Building resilience to climate change and improving diarrhoeal management in coastal communities.








Assess climatic and non-climatic determinants of diarrhoeal diseases in coastal communities in Ghana and understand how they impact on diarrhoeal transmission.


Assess local governance systems that address climate related extreme events, disasters and disease outbreaks. Assess the capacity of community health systems to manage diarrhoea.


Develop a probabilistic scenario testing framework for visualization of the complex interactions of the many factors associated with diarrhoea under climate change and climate extreme scenarios.


Understand the epidemiology and transmission pathways of diarrhoea in coastal communities.

C2R-CD

The Coastal Communities Resilience to Climate and Diarrhoea (C2R-CD) project aims to generate long term data series to model the interactions between climatic, hydrological, environmental, epidemiological, institutional and socio-cultural determinants of diarrhoea.

The study will focus on communities found along the eastern and central coastline of the country, which are the most vulnerable to sea level rise and flooding incidents. The research will help explore the complexities and dynamics of diarrhoeal diseases under various climatic, social and environmental scenarios towards co-developing innovative and effective resilience solutions in coastal communities. Transdisciplinary processes will be used to engage multi-level and multi-sectoral stakeholders from the beginning to ensure that knowledge generated will be owned by all for better uptake. Training and awareness-raising activities will improve awareness and enhance understanding of climate change impacts on diarrhoea and ways to develop resilient health systems. Knowledge products will be made available to policy and decision-makers to provide country-specific, evidence-based solutions towards addressing climate related health risks in coastal communities.

Rationale
Global climate change is expected to severely impact human health in various ways, including increasing the occurrence of waterborne enteric diseases, especially in poor and vulnerable communities that have low adaptive capacity. The relationship between climate change and health is however complex as many factors are interlinked, and include mediating drivers such as ecosystem disruption, biodiversity loss and social and economic conditions. As a result, promoting climate resilient health solutions require a comprehensive approaches developed with multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral participation.
Relevance
In Ghana, health is prioritized in the current national development agenda, the Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Development Policies (2017-2024), as well as in sectoral frameworks that address public and environmental health. These include the Public Health Act (2012, Act 851), Ghana National Action Plan for Health Security (2018), and National Climate Change Policy (2016) and its Action Plan (2015-2020). Currently, a national One Health Policy is being developed to provide a collaborative strategy for addressing health risks that are interlinked across the human-animal-environment sectors. Achieving national health objectives therefore requires greater cooperation between various actors within and across multiple agencies, working at local, national and global levels. In recognition of these multi-sectoral and multi-level complexities, the C2R-CD project intends to employ a comprehensive approach to co-design interventions through participatory processes and transdisciplinary based approaches for developing the resilience of coastal communities to climate change and diarrhoeal diseases. Local partners from both the public and private sectors who have extensive experience in participatory stakeholder processes will play a key role in the implementation of the project.
Methodology
The project will be implemented through five work packages (WPs): WP1 will generate climate related biophysical information, and WP2 will assess the epidemiological, environmental drivers and transmission pathways issues of the project. WP3 will explore the socio-cultural and economic factors and community level institutional arrangements in disaster risk management and diarrhoea prevention and management. Data generated from WPs 1-3 will be collated and modelled for scenario predictions in WP4 to inform disease management. WP5 will integrate community participation into the research process and implementation of innovative strategies that will be informed by the various WPs, particularly WP4. Each WP will have one lead and one co-lead academic researcher, however, other researchers with relevant expertise will be included at different stages of the research process. WPs 1-4 will each have 1 PhD student who will be fully supported by the project (tuition and field costs) to build their capacity in the various disciplines covered by this project (Marine Science, Public Health, Environmental Science, and Modelling). The non-academic partner institutions will provide support to the participatory processes with local communities and institutions for knowledge sharing and development of innovative solutions. Ethical permission will be sought from relevant ethical review boards, such as the Ethical Review Boards of the College of Basic and Applied Science (CBAS), University of Ghana, and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) in Ghana.


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The effects of climate change globally is increasing. Studies have shown the human health...


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FACTS: Global climate change is expected to severely impact human health in various ways, including increasing the occurrence of waterborne enteric diseases.


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The overall goal of the C2R-CD project is to build resilience to climate change and improve diarrhoeal management in coastal communities.

Outcomes

Gain understanding in the dynamics of biophysical and climatic factors on coastal ecosystems to inform diarrhoeal management in coastal communities.

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