Information Systems Research for Climate Health: An Agenda to Tackle the Imminent Global Health Crisis

Abstract

Climate change constitutes an imminent global health crisis threatening human health directly through extreme weather events and indirectly via altered disease patterns and food insecurity. This paper identifies climate health as an emerging field, emphasizing the critical role of Health Management Information Systems (HMIS) in mitigating the negative health impact. By leveraging Early Warning Systems (EWS) and integrating climate data, HMIS can provide decision-makers with actionable information. The study employs a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot to review a large corpus of interdisciplinary literature, highlighting the need for Information Systems (IS) research on EWS design and integration, climate health information systems in practice, resilient health systems, capacity building for climate health action, and institutional impact of digital innovation. The findings underscore the importance of developing robust, adaptive IS to support climate health actions and outline a comprehensive IS research agenda to address the multifaceted challenges climate change poses to public health.