This project is being executed by the Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) sub-regional office for the Caribbean located in Barbados and financed by the European Union under EDF11. The overall objective is to strengthen the resilience of health services, ultimately aiming at reducing the mortality and morbidity from the expected health consequences of climate change in Caribbean countries. The specific objectives are:

1. Adapt and pilot PAHO/WHO tools to estimate health benefits of mitigation policies and interventions, in selected countries.
2. Develop comprehensive health chapters in National Adaptation Plans (HNAP) for climate change.
3. Establish improved surveillance capacity of/by professionals working in the health sector and health-determining sectors, including through the development of climate-informed integrated systems and protocols to monitor selected determinants of health (e.g. heat, water and sanitation) as well as health diseases (zoonosis, vector borne diseases, foodborne diseases and antimicrobial resistance).
4. Promote strong, effective Climate Change leadership among government officials, civil society, communities, environmental health professionals, and the private sector through implementation of successful approaches, such as One Health.

CIMH is collaborating with the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) to implement Specific Objective (SO) 3. This objective focuses on conducting thorough assessments of country health surveillance systems to establish baselines and identify key gaps within the system. The SO will design and implement climate integrated, early warning disease surveillance systems. Training is being conducted for a multisectoral cadre of health-related professionals, who are involved in the collection, management/interpretation of data and sustainability of the system, with a focus on using the outputs from the system for health planning. Under SO3, as part of the health climate apparatus, CIMH has led on the enhancement of the Caribbean Health Climatic Bulletin, which can also be a prototype for National Health Climatic Bulletins.

Working with an international expert team under CARPHA’s leadership, a spatio-temporal modelling framework for forecasting of climate-driven dengue outbreaks has been enhanced under this project. Contextualised forecasting models for dengue have been developed and tested for Barbados and Grenada, with another to be tested in Saint Lucia.