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.

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.

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.