Journal article
The 2019 report of the MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: a turbulent year with mixed progress
PJ Beggs, Y Zhang, H Bambrick, HL Berry, MK Linnenluecke, S Trueck, P Bi, SM Boylan, D Green, Y Guo, IC Hanigan, FH Johnston, DL Madden, A Malik, GG Morgan, S Perkins-Kirkpatrick, L Rychetnik, M Stevenson, N Watts, AG Capon
Medical Journal of Australia | WILEY | Published : 2019
DOI: 10.5694/mja2.50405
Abstract
The MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change was established in 2017 and produced its first Australian national assessment in 2018. It examined 41 indicators across five broad domains: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. It found that, overall, Australia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on health, and that policy inaction in this regard threatens Australian lives. In this report we present the 2019 update. We track progress on health and climate change in Australia across the same five broad domains and ..
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Awarded by University of Sydney
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Dr Elizabeth Ebert (Australian Bureau of Meteorology) for contributing indicator 2.4 (Climate information services for health) and Bronwyn Brown for assistance with Google Analytics for that indicator. For indicator 1.2 (Exposure to temperature change) and indicator 1.3 (Health effects of heatwaves) we thank Robert Fawcett who conducted the analysis and wrote the text with assistance from Elizabeth Ebert and John Nairn (all from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology). Material for the Supporting Information for indicator 1.5 (Mental health) was prepared by Helen Berry (University of Sydney) and Lennart Reifels, Suzanne Mavoa, and Hamish Bignell (University of Melbourne). Lennart Reifels contributed to data acquisition and coordination of the background scientific project. Suzanne Mavoa led the sourcing and analysis of temperature data and building of the database. She is supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellowship (1121035). Hamish Bignell undertook the analysis of the temperature data and contributed to building the database. We acknowledge the work of Zahra Borghei Ghomi who worked as a research assistant on compiling the relevant information for Section 3. Richard Broome and Joshua Horsley provided advice related to the calculation of the attributable number of premature deaths for indicator 3.5.2. In relation to Box 11, we acknowledge members of the Climate Change and Health Working Group, Medical Education Curriculum Committee, Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand. We thank Jonathan Chambers, Tord Kjellstrom and Bruno Lemke for the Australian data used for indicator 1.4 (Change in labour capacity), and Yang Liu and Bryan Vu for the Australian data used for indicator 1.6 (Wildfire exposure).