Health linked to climate change in focus on an interdisciplinary conference

The conference, which is organized in Stockholm, brings together researchers, experts, decision-makers, and representatives of non-governmental organizations and the private sector. Researchers from different locations around the world will contribute their views and discuss important aspects of the relationship between climate and health.

– It is clear that we need to prepare for and confront the major challenges associated with climate, overexploitation and the world’s biodiversity – issues of sustainability and transition – and in this case it is about how to deal with and avoid large-scale health risks. Interdisciplinary approaches are becoming increasingly important. “We need to help each other,” says Henrik Sjodin, who conducts research in public health, global health, and infectious epidemiology at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine.

He, along with researchers Junwen Gu, Raman Preet, and Hans Oro, are part of an international team organizing the conference. It is part of the Horizon 2020 ENBEL project (Enhancing research work at Belmont to support EU policy-making on climate change and health).

Climate change and the over-exploitation of nature associated with the biodiversity crisis we are witnessing today appear to have a significant impact on health and the risk of infectious diseases.

– A large part of our research within the research group revolves around understanding how changes in the natural environment affect the risk of infectious diseases. Climate change and the over-exploitation of nature linked to the biodiversity crisis we are witnessing today have a major impact on health and the risk of infectious diseases, says Henrik Sjodin.

The research also focuses on how to reduce the risks of disease outbreaks and epidemics.

– This could mean that we want to understand how and what natural functions can serve to reduce infection risks or climate impact. By preserving or restoring natural environments or processes, we may be able to revitalize and use functions that should already exist naturally in the environment, says Henrik Godin.

Climate and environmental issues

Research fellows MacInnis Odhiambo Siwe, Zia Faruk, and Chaibu José Armando, all from the research group of Henrik Sjodin’s laboratory, will make scientific contributions to the conference on issues related to climate and the environment, partly on Lyme disease, West Nile virus in Europe, and partly on malaria. In East Africa.

At the conference, many celebrities will deliver speeches, including Jan Vogelstedt (CICERO), Catherine Tohn (ISGlobal), Vladimir Kendrovski (WHO European Center for Environment and Health), Aleksandra Kazmierczak (European Environment Agency), Haleska Graczyk. (International Labor Organization), Ida Knutsson (Public Health Agency) and Anders Nordström (Foreign Ministry).

Three seminars are on the agenda

The conference will also include three special seminars, one led by ENBEL and the other two led by the Belmont Forum and a newly formed group of Horizon Europe projects in the field of climate and health. The last seminar was organized by Raman Preet.

We hope that the conference will lead to people with different knowledge and orientations in the field of climate and health meeting, speaking and exchanging knowledge, which we hope will create synergies that move the field forward towards new knowledge. Henrik Godin says questions about the relationship between climate, biodiversity and health need more attention.

For those who cannot attend, there is the option to participate digitally or listen to the recording. More information about the conference.