IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v20y2023i3p1750-d1039452.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate Change and Health: Local Government Capacity for Health Protection in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • James C. Smith

    (College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide 5042, Australia)

  • Harriet Whiley

    (College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide 5042, Australia)

  • Kirstin E. Ross

    (College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide 5042, Australia)

Abstract

Climate change is the greatest global health threat of the 21st century, with numerous direct and indirect human health consequences. Local governments play a critical role in communities’ response to climate change, both through strategies to reduce emissions and adaption plans to respond to changing climate and extreme weather events. Australian local government environmental health officers (EHOs) have the relevant skills and expertise to inform and develop adaptation plans for health protection in the context of climate change. This study used an online survey followed by phone interviews of local government management to determine the extent to which EHOs are involved in adaptation planning in health protection climate change plans. Questions were also asked to determine whether local councils are aware of EHOs’ capability to contribute and to gauge the willingness of management to provide EHOs with the workload capacity to do so. The findings demonstrated that although climate adaptation and mitigation planning is occurring in local government, it is not including or considering the public health impacts on the community. Primarily, it was found that this oversight was due to a lack of awareness of the health impacts of climate change outside of a disaster or emergency scenario. Currently, EHOs are an untapped source of knowledge and skills that can contribute to climate change adaption planning. To support this, a framework of local environmental health practice was developed to assist the reconceptualization of the scope of practice required for the planning and response to climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • James C. Smith & Harriet Whiley & Kirstin E. Ross, 2023. "Climate Change and Health: Local Government Capacity for Health Protection in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-12, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:1750-:d:1039452
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1750/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1750/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James C. Smith & Harriet Whiley & Kirstin E. Ross, 2021. "The New Environmental Health in Australia: Failure to Launch?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-10, February.
    2. Austin, Stephanie E. & Ford, James D. & Berrang-Ford, Lea & Biesbroek, Robbert & Ross, Nancy A., 2019. "Enabling local public health adaptation to climate change," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 236-244.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Seok Bum Hong & Jin Byeong Lee & Jeong Hoon Shin & Hong Sik Yun, 2023. "Criteria for and Policy Implications of Setting Recovery Priorities of National Functions during Disruptions by Disasters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Harriet Whiley & James C. Smith & Nicole Moore & Rebecca Burton & Nadia Conci & Helen Psarras & Kirstin E. Ross, 2023. "Climate Change and Health: Challenges to the Local Government Environmental Health Workforce in South Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(14), pages 1-11, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria João Salvador Costa & Alexandra Leitão & Rosa Silva & Vanessa Monteiro & Pedro Melo, 2022. "Climate Change Prevention through Community Actions and Empowerment: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-37, November.
    2. Harriet Whiley & James C. Smith & Nicole Moore & Rebecca Burton & Nadia Conci & Helen Psarras & Kirstin E. Ross, 2023. "Climate Change and Health: Challenges to the Local Government Environmental Health Workforce in South Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(14), pages 1-11, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:1750-:d:1039452. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.