The value of self-care during climate-related extreme weather events (EWE) to support sexual and reproductive health and rights: Intersections between climate, health, and social inequalities

Abstract

Climate-related extreme weather events (EWE) affect sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) outcomes through complex and multi-level pathways. These include institutional-level effects on health systems, such as damaged health infrastructure and roads, barriers to retaining qualified health and care workers, as well as healthcare access barriers due to increased economic precarity, displacement and migration. Furthermore, EWE effects on SRHR disproportionately affect marginalised communities. Optimising SRHR in the context of climate change and EWE thus require moving beyond traditional health system approaches. Self-care interventions (e.g. HIV self-tests) and self-care actions (e.g. self-monitoring blood glucose during pregnancy), whereby affected individuals and communities have increased control and agency over their own health practices, can ensure essential SRHR needs can be maintained during crises. Yet opportunities for SRHR self-care strategies in communities affected by EWE are underexplored. When health systems collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic in countries spanning income levels, self-care options were prioritised to maintain essential health services. In this commentary, we explore how SRHR self-care interventions and actions can be integrated into EWE emergency preparedness across dimensions of self-management, self-testing, and self-awareness to build individual, community and health systems climate resilience.