Ensuring primary healthcare services can continue in a changing climate

Led by Dr Christian Lueme Lokotola at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and Dr Thomas Shepherd at Keele University in the UK

The effects of climate change - like the increased frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves and flooding, and changes in disease patterns - can overwhelm primary healthcare systems and worsen the unfair disadvantages some people already face when it comes to accessing essential health services. This is because primary care is often under-resourced and ill-equipped to handle such disruptions.

Supported by the Foundation’s ICCH funding, Dr Christian Lueme Lokotola at Stellenbosch University and Dr Thomas Shepherd at Keele University aim to make primary healthcare systems in South Africa, Malawi, Kenya and Ghana more ‘climate-resilient’. This work centres on tailoring and implementing a Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (CVCA), which is designed to assess how vulnerable primary care settings are to the risks of climate-driven disruption, and then creating bespoke action plans to improve their preparedness.

By the end of the project, they hope to have made the CVCA robust and adaptable to other African countries, ensuring that critical primary care services can be maintained in the face of climate change and extreme climate events.