Climate Matters in Health Decision-Making

Abstract

This timely chapter by Thomson, Lyon and Ceccato highlights the significance of climate data in mitigating negative health outcomes. The authors provide an introduction to climate data sources, explaining how climate data are measured, where they can be accessed and how public health practitioners can incorporate them into disease early warning systems. They demonstrate how climate information-based on analysis of historical data, monitoring of current conditions or predictions of future weather, climate events and trends-can inform public health policy and planning. The authors conclude by offering a checklist for health planners intending to incorporate climate data into their information systems and provide links to relevant literature and resources.