Health policy and systems research responding to the climate crisis: lessons from Pakistan Background and Study Objectives

Health policy and systems research responding to the climate crisis: lessons from Pakistan Background and Study Objectives

Donor: Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR)

Duration Period: October 2023-October 2024

Country Focal Person: Ms. Rabia Tabassum (Rabia_tabassum@sdpi.org )

Country Team Members: Ms. Rabia Tabassum, Mr. Qasim Shah, Ms. Khansa Naeem and Mr. Syed Hassan Murtaza

Climate change has a direct effect on human health and is considered a major risk to global health in this century. While the contribution of Pakistan to global warming is negligible, the country is bearing the substantial cost of climate change and this threat is increasing continuously (Iqbal 2020). On one hand, the health system in Pakistan is prone to several issues including poor infrastructure, insufficient resources, inequality, low coverage, and governance issues. The danger of climate change is making this situation worse by negatively impacting the overall health system. For instance, the flooding in 2022 caused a loss of more than USD 15 billion, with a significant impact on health in terms of deaths, increased disease burden, disrupted supply chain, and damaged health infrastructure destroying 13% of health facilities in the country (MoPDSI 2022). According to the WHO (2022), around 64,767 cases of dengue virus were reported in Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistan reported more than 1.6 million cases of malaria in 2022 (WHO 2023).

Pakistan has already made some progress toward climate-resilient health systems. For instance, A Framework of Action for ClimateResilient Health Systems in Pakistan (2023), National Adaptation Plan (2023), National Health Vision (2016-2025), Pakistan’s commitments to Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), and COP26 Health Programme are reflective of the fact that government has recognized the risk of climate change. However, the adaptation and mitigation planning and implementation in the health sector is struggling with various challenges including coordination, lack of vulnerability assessment of health facilities, along with financial and human resource constraints. Keeping in view the increasing health burden due to climate catastrophes and to explore further the gaps in existing policy response and its implementation, SDPI is conducting a study with the following objectives:

• What is the existing policy response to climate-health vulnerabilities; what worked and what didn’t?
• Assessment of the climate-resilience and environmental sustainability of healthcare facilities at the district level
• Provide a baseline on knowledge, sensitivity, and prioritization of policy makers/ managers of health systems, climate change, and disaster risk reduction.
• To identify barriers at leadership, governance, infrastructure, human resources, data and evidence, and technology to move towards climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems along with actionable recommendations.