Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change

While health impact assessment (HIA) has typically been applied to projects, plans or policies, it has significant potential with regard to strategic considerations of major health issues facing society such as climate change. Given the complexity of climate change, assessing health impacts presents...

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Main Authors: Brown, Helen, Spickett, Jeffery
Format: Journal Article
Published: Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/19632
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author Brown, Helen
Spickett, Jeffery
author_facet Brown, Helen
Spickett, Jeffery
author_sort Brown, Helen
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description While health impact assessment (HIA) has typically been applied to projects, plans or policies, it has significant potential with regard to strategic considerations of major health issues facing society such as climate change. Given the complexity of climate change, assessing health impacts presents new challenges that may require different approaches compared to traditional applications of HIA. This research focuses on the development of health consequence scales suited to assessing and comparing health effects associated with climate change and applied within a HIA framework. This assists in setting priorities for adaptation plans to minimize the public health impacts of climate change. The scales presented in this paper were initially developed for a HIA of climate change in Perth in 2050, but they can be applied across spatial and temporal scales. The design is based on a health effects pyramid with health measures expressed in orders of magnitude and linked to baseline population and health data. The health consequence measures are combined with a measure of likelihood to determine the level of risk associated with each health potential health impact. In addition, a simple visual framework that can be used to collate, compare and communicate the level of health risks associated with climate change has been developed.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-196322017-09-13T13:50:22Z Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change Brown, Helen Spickett, Jeffery health consequence scales health impact assessment climate adaptation While health impact assessment (HIA) has typically been applied to projects, plans or policies, it has significant potential with regard to strategic considerations of major health issues facing society such as climate change. Given the complexity of climate change, assessing health impacts presents new challenges that may require different approaches compared to traditional applications of HIA. This research focuses on the development of health consequence scales suited to assessing and comparing health effects associated with climate change and applied within a HIA framework. This assists in setting priorities for adaptation plans to minimize the public health impacts of climate change. The scales presented in this paper were initially developed for a HIA of climate change in Perth in 2050, but they can be applied across spatial and temporal scales. The design is based on a health effects pyramid with health measures expressed in orders of magnitude and linked to baseline population and health data. The health consequence measures are combined with a measure of likelihood to determine the level of risk associated with each health potential health impact. In addition, a simple visual framework that can be used to collate, compare and communicate the level of health risks associated with climate change has been developed. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/19632 10.3390/ijerph110909607 Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) fulltext
spellingShingle health consequence scales
health impact assessment
climate adaptation
Brown, Helen
Spickett, Jeffery
Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change
title Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change
title_full Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change
title_fullStr Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change
title_full_unstemmed Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change
title_short Health Consequence Scales for Use in Health Impact Assessments of Climate Change
title_sort health consequence scales for use in health impact assessments of climate change
topic health consequence scales
health impact assessment
climate adaptation
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/19632