Climate change and health in Southeast Asia - defining research priorities and the role of the Wellcome Trust Africa Asia Programmes

Abstract

This article summarises a recent virtual meeting organised by the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam on the topic of climate change and health, bringing local partners, faculty and external collaborators together from across the Wellcome and Oxford networks. Attendees included invited local and global climate scientists, clinicians, modelers, epidemiologists and community engagement practitioners, with a view to setting priorities, identifying synergies and fostering collaborations to help define the regional climate and health research agenda. In this summary paper, we outline the major themes and topics that were identified and what will be needed to take forward this research for the next decade. We aim to take a broad, collaborative approach to including climate science in our current portfolio where it touches on infectious diseases now, and more broadly in our future research directions. We will focus on strengthening our research portfolio on climate-sensitive diseases, and supplement this with high quality data obtained from internal studies and external collaborations, obtained by multiple methods, ranging from traditional epidemiology to innovative technology and artificial intelligence and community-led research. Through timely agenda setting and involvement of local stakeholders, we aim to help support and shape research into global heating and health in the region.

Keywords: climate change; global heating; global warming; indonesia; laos; myanmar; southeast asia; thailand; vietnam.

Figure 1.. Locations of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (green) and Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) (blue) study sites.

MORU additionally has study sites in Eastern Africa that are not shown here. The background colours of the map represent the additional number of months per year that are predicted to have a monthly average maximum temperature above 30°C over the 2081–2100 time period (based on data simulated by the CNRM-CM6-1 GCM model with the SSP 126 and obtained from WorldClim. The dark blue color shows the coastal area lost to sea by 2100.