Dear Neil - some thoughts on your questions [https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/cop-27-4-who-and-wmo-launch-new-knowled... (feel free to share bearing in mind these are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect opinions of others within Evidence Aid):
Question 1. "Does the world's population have true access to and understanding of climate change, its causes, and its devastating impact on health, both now and especially in the future?" I don’t believe this to be the case, although Evidence Aid’s resources relevant to climate change ( https://evidenceaid.org/evidence/humanitarian-impact-of-climate-change/ ) are freely available to everyone - but of course this is dependdent on accessibility to the Internet.
Question 2. "What is the level of awareness among the populations of low- and middle-income countries? The countries that are affected most by climate change are those that have contributed least. Are people aware of this injustice?" I don’t feel qualified to answer this question fully although it does seem that the countries most affected by climate change are often those who have contributed least to it.
Question 4. "What can be done to increase the availability and use of reliable information on climate change and its impact on health, and to protect people from misinformation?" Evidence Aid has produced an evidence collection which has some summaries in different languages ( https://evidenceaid.org/evidence/humanitarian-impact-of-climate-change/ ). However, this is an unfunded collection and relies on volunteer time to curate and populate it. We would welcome any suggestions on how we should fund such a potentially large collection of freely available summaries of systematic reviews relevant to climate change.
Question 6. "Is there a dynamic community of practice for climate change and health? A community like HIFA that supports discussions around the issues and that is open to all with an interest?" I do not believe that, without funding, Evidence Aid has the resource to support a dynamic community of practice for discussion. I think any community of practice based around discussions should produce solutions, freely available to all given the comments and questions above. How do we ensure that action is taken rather than more talk?
Claire Allen, Operations Manager
Evidence Aid: Championing evidence-based humanitarian action.
Please note that my regular working days are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Please do not expect a response outside of those days.
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Email: callen@evidenceaid.org | Skype: claireallencochrane | Website: www.evidenceaid.org | Twitter: @EvidenceAid | Facebook/Instagram: EvidenceAid
Our evidence collections can be found here: https://evidenceaid.org/evidence/
HIFA profile: Claire Allen is Operations Manager at Evidence Aid, UK. Professional interests: Evidence Aid (www.evidenceaid.org) provides evidence for people in disaster preparedness and response to make better decisions. Areas of interest = humanitarian crises, natural disasters and major healthcare emergencies (disaster = when a country is unable to cope with the disaster/crisis or emergency). She is a member of the HIFA Working Group on Access to Health Research. http://www.hifa.org/working-groups/access-health-research Email: callen AT evidenceaid.org
