Coordination Funds

拟议的研究单位(RU)解决了由于气候变化而加速的疾病负担这一日益增长的公共卫生问题。到目前为止，公共卫生科学家、气候变化研究人员和社会科学家在量化气候变化对人类健康影响方面的协调努力非常有限。更重要的是，撒哈拉以南非洲的弱势人口在这方面的研究不足，尽管非洲农村人口受气候变化的影响很大，适应能力最低。事实上，这一次大陆面临着一项未完成的议程，即与营养不良和传染病作斗争，这些疾病造成了所有负面的社会和经济后果。与此同时，过去几十年来，非传染性疾病在撒哈拉以南非洲迅速出现，它们的管理现在与当地卫生系统有限的资源形成竞争。到目前为止，气候变化对该区域三个主要健康问题--儿童营养不良、疟疾和炎热引起的心血管功能障碍--的额外影响还没有得到充分的界定。因此，本研究的目的是：i)在布基纳法索和肯尼亚确定的农村人口中建立从天气变化通过水文、农业和经济因素到营养不良、疟疾和热应激的因果路径，ii)预测这些路径上的未来发展，iii)量化有希望的气候适应战略的有效性、社会经济成本和预测的变化，iv)将历史和预测的情景从地方提升到国家层面，最后，v)确定与气候变化的长期健康后果有关的更广泛的社会影响。为了这所研究中心的成功，德国人口健康科学和气候变化研究领域的两个卓越科学中心携手合作，与专业学术机构合作：海德堡全球卫生研究所(HIGH)、波茨坦气候影响研究所(PIK)及其来自布基纳法索和肯尼亚的长期合作伙伴，提供公共卫生、营养、生理学、气候研究、经济学和政治学所需的广泛专家科学家。这一南北网络将应对概念和技术挑战，以便更好地了解气候变化、中间生物物理因素和人类健康之间的复杂相互作用。因此，拟议的气候单位将为为撒哈拉以南非洲制定有效和高效的气候适应战略提供必要的知识。在全球化的世界中，这种知情的适应努力将有助于人口健康、社会财富和政治稳定。

The proposed Research Unit (RU) addresses the growing public health concern of accelerated disease burden as a consequence of climate change. So far, there have been very limited concerted efforts by public health scientists, climate change researchers, and social scientists to quantify the climate change impacts on human health. Even more so, the vulnerable populations in sub-Saharan Africa have been under-researched for this matter, despite the facts that rural populations in Africa are strongly affected by climate change and exhibit the lowest adaptive capacity. Indeed, this sub-continent faces an unfinished agenda of combatting undernutrition and infectious diseases with all the negative societal and economic consequences. At the same time, non-communicable conditions have been rapidly emerging in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decades, and their management now competes with the limited resources of the local health systems. To date, the additional impacts of climate change on three of these major health problems in the region, namely childhood undernutrition, malaria and cardio-vascular dysfunction from heat have been insufficiently defined. Therefore, this RU aims at i) establishing the causal pathways from weather changes through hydrological, agricultural and economic factors to undernutrition, malaria and heat stress among defined rural populations in Burkina Faso and Kenya, ii) projecting future developments along these pathways, iii) quantifying the effectiveness, the socio-economic costs, and the changes in projections of promising climate-specific adaptation strategies, iv) upscaling the historic and projected scenarios from the local to the national level, and finally, v) identifying broader societal impacts related to long-term health consequences of climate change. For the success of this RU, two German centers of scientific excellence in population health science and in climate change research have joined forces and partnered with expert academic institutions: The Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and their long-standing partners from Burkina Faso and Kenya offer the wide range of expert scientists needed from public health, nutrition, physiology, climate research, economics, and political science. This North-South network will meet the conceptual and technical challenges for better understanding the complex interplay between climate change, intermediate bio-physical factors and human health. Thereby, the proposed RU will provide essential knowledge for developing effective and efficient climate-specific adaptation strategies for sub-Saharan Africa. In a globalized world, such informed adaptation efforts will contribute to population health, societal wealth and political stability.