Bacterial and Viral Infection

Climate change has already increased average global temperatures and heat waves, and this is expected to intensify over coming years. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable and affected regions. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart, kidney, diabetes and respiratory conditions are a major cause of diseases burden in sub-Saharan. These groups of diseases have many origins including the environment, lifestyle and genetic factors.

In order to understand the link between climate change, air pollution, ecosystems degradation and NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa, Dr Sokhna Thiam and Dr Peninah Murage from the African Population and Health Research Centre and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine plan to focus of four cities in Senegal, which suffer with high numbers of NCDs deaths and are amongst the worst affected by climate change globally.

The team will summarise existing literature on the impact of extreme heat exposure on NCDs related deaths. They will then examine how heat affects deaths and hospitalisations across four large cities in Senegal, and find out how increases in air pollution and loss of green spaces contribute to this.

They aim to predict how deaths under different climate scenarios will change in future decades. By engaging key decisions makers to collectively generate ideas and interventions, this could help reduce the health and societal impact of the ongoing challenges.