How can we advance solutions to mitigate and adapt to the health threats of climate change? Meet three more of the Global Climate and Health Summit’s Innovation Thinktank participants, who will share their ideas and developing projects to a panel of experts on 17 July. The Innovation Thinktank provides an opportunity to discuss global perspectives on the current challenges, as well as interdisciplinary collaboration for potential solutions.
In this blog, Vida Asah-Ayeh, Silvia Pastorino and Basheer Waziri share their innovative responses to the threat of climate change and summarise their projects to create bold and meaningful action, which is our ambition for The Summit – to create tangible, lasting impact and action.
Air Pollution
Enhancing heat resilience and reducing air pollution through community-driven adaptation in low-resource urban settings
Vida Asah-Ayeh
University of Ghana, Legon Country, Ghana
Community-driven adaptation strategies can enhance heat resilience and reduce air pollution in low-resource urban settings. I will explore this by drawing on research from GaMashie, a climate-vulnerable coastal community in Accra, Ghana. As part of the HABVIA project, data were collected through focus group discussions with adults and group activities with children aged 6 to 17, who expressed their knowledge and experiences through discussions and drawings. The findings reveal how biomass cooking, crowded housing, and the use of car tyres at the old abattoir for burning animals contribute to air pollution and intensified indoor heat. Residents reported respiratory challenges, heat-related discomfort, and worsened chronic health conditions, particularly among women, children and older adults. My presentation highlights community-identified solutions, such as planting of trees, clean cooking transitions, improved housing, and stricter environmental health enforcement. It demonstrates how centering local knowledge, including children’s voices-can inform practical, low-cost strategies to improve public health and build resilience in urban poor communities.
Sustainable Nutrition
Planet friendly school meals: A tool for food systems transformation contributing to meeting global climate, food and health goals
Silvia Pastorino
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
Current food systems are driving environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change while failing to provide nutritious food for a growing population. Children are especially vulnerable, with 1 billion at high-risk of food insecurity due to climate disruptions. The Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition (RCSHN) Planetary Health Diets community of Practice, focuses on exploring how school meals can become more environmentally sustainable and act as an entry point for food systems transformations. The ‘Planet Friendly School Meal Conceptual Framework’, focuses on two key policy areas: 1) improving school meal programs through menu design, clean energy for cooking, waste reduction, and children education on sustainable and healthy foods; and 2) using procurement to drive demand for local, climate resilient, diverse and ecologically produced foods. These efforts aim to create equitable, healthy, and eco-friendly meals, with long-term health, education, and environmental benefits, while fostering lifelong sustainable eating habits in children.
Heat Resilience
Strengthening heat resilience and mitigating heat-related mental health impacts among vulnerable populations in low-resource settings through cost-effective and sustainable interventions
Basheer Waziri, Kano Independent Research Centre Trust, Nigeria
My presentation outlines our proposed integrated approach to strengthening heat resilience and mitigating the effects of extreme heat exposure on mental health, with a focus on anxiety, depression, and psychosis. Using Northern Nigeria as a model where temperatures frequently exceed 40°C during the heat season (March–June), the proposal combines: (1) climate heat surveillance via satellite monitoring and heat sensors to identify and develop heat vulnerability maps; (2) bio-psychosocial research examining oxidative stress and neurotransmitter (serotonin, GABA, and dopamine) imbalances to advance our understanding of the heat-mental health link and help formulate diagnostic criteria for heat-induced mental health disorders; and (3) community-driven interventions involving implementation of low-cost sustainable solutions, including passive green-roof cooling shelters, solar-powered cooling stations and public awareness campaigns targeting at-risk communities. We also advocate for the integration of heat resilience into workplace safety and labour policies. The initiative targets highly exposed street children (Almajiri) and outdoor workers.
Keep an eye out for our next post to meet more of our Innovation Thinktank participants.