A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change: Promoting Community-Based Adaptation Planning for Climate Change in Alaska

Speakers: Tenaya Sunbury and David Driscoll, Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies, University of Alaska Anchorage

Increasing average temperatures in Arctic regions are affecting human health through multiple pathways, such as changes to the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and changes in the geographic range and occurrence of infectious and chronic diseases.

Following several reports of current and potential human health impacts from climate change, the Institute of Circumpolar Health Studies (ICHS) developed and implemented a monitoring system to capture baseline human health and ecosystem data from three ecologically distinct regions of Alaska.

In this presentation, Drs. Driscoll and Sunbury describe the monitoring system and the information it provides for improving public-health decision making.