Effective prevention in a city requires a portfolio of actions at different levels: from health system preparedness coordinated with meteorological early warning systems to timely public and medical advice and improvements to housing and urban planning.
These actions can be integrated in a defined Heat Health Action Plan. There are several principles that should be used in planning for and responding to heatwaves.
This Masterclass is an introduction to heat health action planning, based on principles and guidance developed by the World Health Organization and from case studies of actual plans.
Learning Objectives
- To understand the different components of Heat Health Action Plans
- To understand how national meteorological and hydrological services and health sector can work together.
- To describe how longer term strategies can be incorporated in to heat health action planning
- To understand the importance of including evaluation of heat interventions.
- To provide examples of established Heat Health Action Plans for tropical and temperate climates.
Further Resources
- Heatwave Plan for England
- Ahmedebad Heat Action Plan
-
Heat Alert and Response Systems to Protect Health: Best Practices Guidebook
Health Canada -
Cities Adapt to Extreme Heat: Celebrating Local Leadership
Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, Health Canada -
Heatwaves and Health: Guidance on Warning-System Development
WMO, WHO -
Heat-health action plans
WHO
Lessons
Lesson 1: Heat Health Action Plan Components
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LOI7RDedM&feature=emb_title
Lesson 2: Case Study - Developing Heat Health Action Plans in Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZGLF8Db6NQ&feature=emb_title
Lesson 3: Case Study - Developing Heat Health Action Plans in India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uom_s-RF45c&feature=emb_title
Tutors
Tutors

Abhiyant Tiwari
Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management
Abhiyant Tiwari is an Assistant Professor and Program Manager at the Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management, Gandhinagar, India. He is trained as a Master of Public Health with a specialization in Environmental Health Sciences from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Since 2013, as a public health researcher and practitioner at the Public Health Foundation of India, Abhiyant has worked with knowledge partners like Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S., and policy partners like national and sub-national government agencies on developing, implementing, and scaling heatwave health adaptation plans in India. He is a member of the National Disaster Management Authority of India’s technical experts’ group that develops national guidelines for heatwave adaptation plans and a member of experts group the lol竞猜最新版投注APP v10.7. He led a preliminary study for the National Disaster Management of India to estimate local temperature thresholds for heatwave warning systems in more than 100 cities of India and works on developing risk-informed heat health warning systems for the states of India. Abhiyant has also worked on developing guidelines for air pollution health risk communication plans in Indian cities. During challenging times of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Abhiyant in his role of Assistant Professor at Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management, conceptualized, developed, and implemented a Mobile App-based technological solution for effective and real-time surveillance of COVID-19 cases in several districts of Gujarat. He is also a member of the Indian Meteorological Society and a fellow of LEAD India, and Climate Reality.
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Kristie Ebi
University of Washington
Kristie L. Ebi (Ph.D., MPH) is Professor in the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington. She has been conducting research and practice on the health risks of climate variability and change for nearly 25 years, focusing on understanding sources of vulnerability; estimating current impacts and future health risks; designing adaptation policies and measures to reduce the risks of climate change in multi-stressor environments; and estimating the health co-benefits of mitigation policies. She has supported multiple countries in Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific in assessing their vulnerability and implementing adaptation measures. She has been an author on multiple national and international climate change assessments. She has more than 200 publications and has edited fours books on aspects of climate change.
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Peter Berry
Health Canada
Since arriving at Health Canada in 1999, Dr. Peter Berry has conducted research in several areas related to climate change including health risks to Canadians, adaptive capacity, health system resilience, health vulnerability assessment and communicating climate change risks to the public. He is currently a Senior Policy Analyst and Science Advisor to the Director at the Climate Change and Innovation Bureau at Health Canada and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo. Peter is currently an editor and author for the next national assessment Health of Canadians in a Changing Climate: Advancing our Knowledge for Action being led by Health Canada, to be released in 2021. Among other scientific reports, he contributed to the recently released Global Commission on Adaptation Background Paper: Health System Adaptation to Climate Variability and Change. He is currently developing an online course with colleagues at the University of Waterloo for health sector decision makers on building climate resilient health systems.
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Sari Kovats
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Sari Kovats is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health, Environments and Society in the Faculty of Public Health and Policy. She has been researching the effects of weather, climate and climate change on human health for more than 20 years and has published widely on this topic. Her particular areas of interest include health impact assessment of climate change and epidemiological studies of the effects of climate, weather and weather events in urban and rural populations.
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