Towards a better understanding and anticipation of the impacts of climate change on health

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and/or individual safety (e.g. injuries or fatalities), excluding mental health aspects: proposals should explore evidence on the complex interactions between climate change (e.g. changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events) and NCDs and individual safety, which often involve multiple climate exposure pathways and compound and cascading climatic events.

Mental health, considering interactions with brain health if relevant: in the broad focus area of mental health and psychosocial well-being, proposals should increase the evidence on the acute and long-term impacts of climate change and the understanding of new syndromes related to climate stress.

Infectious diseases, including vector-borne and non-vector-borne: proposals should increase the understanding of the factors driving climate-related burden from infectious diseases.

Increase the understanding of correlations, causal pathways and mechanistic effects between climate change and disease/health outcomes, developing unified and standard methodologies and metrics to assess short- and long-term positive and negative impacts of climate change with an adequate level of granularity. Consider individual and/or cascading climatic events and exposure patterns, and risks and drivers of vulnerability and inequality.

Develop longitudinal studies to better ascertain differential effects of climatic stressors on health including multiple scales of impacts, ranging from the molecular level to population health outcomes. Consider variability across populations, generations and life phases, regions and occupations, and collect real-world exposure and health data in living and occupational settings, considering the use of emerging ecosystems such as the European Health Data Space (EHDS) [2] and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) [3] .

Study differential acute and long-term health impacts of climate (including a wide range of factors and cumulative effects) on vulnerable, sensitive or exposed population groups. Consider also differences in geographical vulnerabilities including, when relevant, geographical settings outside of urban areas, in overseas regions and in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) [4] . Understand the role of inequalities and societal vulnerability in determining climate-related health impacts and adaptive capacity.

Advance the knowledge on the climate, ecological and environmental drivers of pathogen abundance, including mechanisms and determinants of distribution, life-cycle patterns, transmission, virulence and survival. Consider climate change drivers of disease severity. Study host/pathogen and vector/host interactions clarifying the role of secondary reservoir hosts such as sylvatic, wildlife and livestock in the maintenance of pathogen life cycle. Assess the efficacy, cost-effectiveness and impact of control measures.

Explore the role of climate-driven human and wildlife mobility (e.g. bird migration patterns, human migration) in enhancing the global spread of pathogens and creating opportunities for their local establishment. Collect better field data and develop tools for disease modelling, risk and scenario projections that encourage interoperable data systems and cross border collaboration.

Increase the availability, accessibility, quality and standardisation of diagnostic testing for early diagnosis of infections and determining immune responses and vaccine efficacy. Increase the capacity for pathogen subtyping, and genomic surveillance for early warning and investigations of climate-related outbreaks. Develop rapid, portable, and affordable standardised diagnostic tools that can withstand climate extremes.

Increase the understanding of the factors that strengthen health resilience to climate change at the individual, local and societal levels. Investigate the role of individual mechanisms, community resilience and local solutions in mitigating the health impacts of climate change and related environmental degradation.