Climate change and Environmental Health are closely related and should be tackled together. Climate change interventions and adaptive capacity are major challenges that need to be addressed by the Environmental Health profession.
The advent of climate change compels all in the Environmental Health field to reassess the Environmental Health risks that communities currently face, and decide on the optimal responses going forward.
Climate change is understood to be a public health issue because it affects the quality of our water, air, food supplies, and living spaces in a multitude of key ways. It's past the point where we can talk about climate change only as an issue that will impact future generations because we're beginning to feel some of the severe effects of the climate crisis now.
Extreme events like heat waves, heavy rainfall, crop failure and extreme flooding are more likely with a changing climate. The increasing number of these extreme weather events, that are unprecedented in size and strength, are very much in line with what climate scientists have been warning we should expect as a result of global warming.
These extremes, lead to increased flooding, prolonged draught, and greater risk of wildfires, which in turn result in greater incidence of infectious diseases, illnesses, deaths, and emotional or mental stress. During heat waves, for example, people with preexisting health conditions such as asthma may be even more likely to suffer health problems. Also the mental stress and trauma of flood events can have chronic, long-term impacts without adequate treatment and care.
Historically, people with the most vulnerability have contributed least to the problem of climate change—in other words, have contributed the fewest greenhouse gas emissions through consumption and everyday living—but are the most vulnerable to its negative impacts. These include children, older adults, women, people with low incomes, indigenous communities, people from racial or ethnic minority groups, and those from developing countries.
Women and children in poverty are most impacted, including refugee women and single-parent families that are also disproportionately affected. Tragically, we can expect to see growing numbers of climate refugees, people who are displaced from their homes because of sea level rise, flood, and a host of other environmental and sociopolitical consequences of climate change.
The overall goal of Environmental Health is to prevent disease through the control of environmental factors that may impact on an individual’s health and wellbeing, and by promoting the creation of health-supportive environments.
Environmental Health Officers are the professionals tasked to implement Environmental health services and protect communities from Environmental pollution & other related nuisances that have harmful effects on man & the environment. In this regard, their broad-based training, skills and expertise, as well as their regulatory powers and location at the environment health nexus, make them ideally suited to make an important contribution with regard to adaptation at the local level.
In the course of their daily routine duties, Environmental Health Officers monitor, evaluate and assess Environmental Health risks, provide information to the public, plan and implement a range of programmes and projects, and create partnerships among, for example, communities, health services, energy providers, housing departments and the private sector.
Currently in Nigeria and Africa in general, there is a great need for effective adaptation measures in the health sector for the near term, such as the provision of clean water and sanitation, increased capacity for disaster preparedness and response, improved surveillance, early warning systems (EWS) and climate change vulnerability mapping.
Given their close interactions with communities, Environmental Health Officers are well placed to play a central and strong role.
However, it is indeed, not happifying that despite global initiatives pertaining to climate change and health, and the shaping of the roles for local level Environmental Health Officers in that respect, Environmental Health services are still at the lowest stage at the local level in Nigeria. This is due to poor supportive policies from the Government, proliferation of appointments of non Environmental Health professionals at the management / policy making levels of our Environmental Health Service Ministries/ Agencies and then the inadequate implementation of extant public health laws and other Environmental health regulations, policies and guidelines by the Environmental Health professionals. These must be checked and properly addressed to achieve desired outcomes.
Having said that, it is worthwhile to mention the health activities and functions that might be considered for Environmental Health Officers, which includes:
• Becoming change agents and facilitating adaptive action across sectors
• Working with individuals, groups, organisations and communities to build capacity and to embrace innovation and creative solutions to climate problems
• Developing programmes and campaigns to increase awareness of climate and health concerns at community level, especially in high-risk areas and high-risk groups (impoverished communities and groups such as the elderly, the very young, those with pre-existing ill health conditions and those living alone)
• Initiating or supporting community-based mitigation measures (that may also have health co-benefits), such as facilitating the infrastructure for, and encouraging, walking and cycling, car-pooling, green buildings and community greening programmes
• Strengthening research programmes, monitoring and surveillance systems to include climate and weather measurements and related ill-health outcomes.
• Considering climate change and greenhouse gas emissions when requested to comment on development proposals.
• Promoting/strengthening of planning, Research & development policies (for example, in establishment of flood lines and building standards).
• Advocating for climate-friendly policies across sectors.
• Ensuring that disaster management and outbreak response plans are in place.
• Facilitating communication of signals from early warning systems (EWS).
In shaping the roles of Environmental Health Officers in relation to climate and health adaptation in Nigeria, and making decisions on resource allocation, a range of social factors that affect people’s vulnerability and resistance to a changing climate will also need to be taken into account. For example, poverty, inequality and hazardous living environments increase vulnerability to weather extremes (i.e. heatwaves, floods, droughts, etc.), food insecurity and declining food quality, altered disease distributions etc. For instance, in a society where only 18% (or less) of households have access to indoor water supply and 22% (or less) have access to a functional flush toilet with adequate water supply, and only a handful of households use electricity for daily cooking, especially because of poor power supply and high poverty index, the effects of climate change may be expected to exacerbate the high degree of existing environmental health vulnerabilities.
As a matter of fact, global dissidence regarding the reality of climate change has diminished, and the debate has shifted to the magnitude of the challenges ahead and the practical adaptation and coping mechanisms needed at all levels.
The time to act is now, and Environmental Health officers, who are at the interface between environment and health, have a crucial role to play. To fulfil their potential, the Environmental Health Officer's Registration Council (EHORECON) in constant collaboration with Environmental Health Officers Association Of Nigeria (EHOAN) needs to spearhead discussions regarding critical climate impacts on health and wellbeing and become the stewards of health adaptation measures at the local level. This should be deliberately reflected in the training curriculum of Environmental Health officers at all levels including regular training & retraining Environmental Health practitioners at all levels too.
