Weathering Change takes us to Ethiopia, Nepal and Peru to hear the stories of women as they struggle to care for their families, while enduring crop failures and water scarcity. The film shows how women and families are already adapting to the climate change challenges that threaten their health and their livelihoods. The film is accompanied by a brief advocacy guide for viewers.
Year: 2011
A successful population, health, and environment (PHE) project requires the full and equal participation of women and girls and men and boys. In order to address the urgent, interconnected challenges in the Lake Victoria Basin—poor maternal and child health, a lack of access to contraception, dwindling fish supply, deforestation, and more—interventions must also work towards gender equality. Women must be able to exercise their right to sexual and reproductive health care services, including their ability to choose if or when to have children. They must be able to participate in income-generating activities, which improve their economic situation and better equip them to protect their families and the natural resources they depend on. The Health of People and the Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) project works to promote gender equality. HoPE-LVB implements a range of activities, including training women’s and young mother’s groups on integrated health and conservation practices and conducting community dialogue sessions surrounding the intersection between gender, sexual and reproductive health, and the environment to bridge gender divides and encourage input and support from all community members.
Year: 2014
Source: Pathfinder International
The largest absolute numbers of maternal deaths occur among the 40–50 million women who deliver annually without a skilled birth attendant. Most of these deaths occur in countries with a total fertility rate greater than 4. The combination of global warming and rapid population growth in the Sahel and parts of the Middle East poses a serious threat to reproductive health and food security. Poverty, lack of resources, and rapid population growth make it unlikely that most women in these countries will have access to skilled birth attendants or emergency obstetric care in the foreseeable future. Three strategies can be implemented to improve women’s health and reproductive rights in high-fertility, low-resource settings: (1) make family planning accessible and remove non-evidence-based barriers to contraception; (2) scale up community distribution of misoprostol for prevention of postpartum hemorrhage and, where it is legal, for medical abortion; and (3) eliminate child marriage and invest in girls and young women, thereby reducing early childbearing.
Year: 2012
Source: International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics
Population Health and Environment (PHE) strategies are argued to improve ecosystem and human health by addressing family size and its effects on natural resource use, food security, and reproductive health. This study investigates men’s views on a PHE family planning (FP) programme delivered among the pastoral Samburu tribe in rural northern Kenya. Three focus group discussions and nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 Samburu men. These discussions revealed support for environmentally-sensitised family planning promotion. Men highlighted their dependency on natural resources and challenges faced in providing for large families and maintaining livestock during drought. These practices were said to lead to natural resource exhaustion, environmental degradation, and wildlife dispersal, undermining key economic benefits of environmental and wildlife conservation. Relating family size to the environment is a compelling strategy to improve support for FP among Samburu men. Kenyan policy-makers should consider integrating community-based PHE strategies among underserved pastoral groups living in fragile ecosystems.
Year: 2017
Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, known historically for its biodiversity, was devastated by years of war. To help restore the park to its former state, in 2008, the Gregory Carr Foundation entered into a 20-year agreement with the Mozambique government via the Gorongosa Restoration Project. Key objectives were: protection of the Park’s biodiversity and natural ecosystem processes, and poverty alleviation through ecotourism and other Park benefits. An underlying assumption was that a healthy ecosystem would provide the foundation for economic and social development. An Ecohealth program was incorporated to address health problems contributing to poverty. With support from USAID and Mt Sinai Hospital, an integrated (PHE) package of services was provided including family planning/reproductive health and maternal and child health interventions. In 2012, a midterm evaluation was commissioned by USAID to assess the extent to which Ecohealth was reaching its objectives and to identify “best practices” for replication and sharing with other integrated efforts worldwide.
Year: 2013
Source: Evaluation and Research Technologies for Health
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and The Lancet Commission have presented evidence about global warming and the impact of human activities on global climate change, and the impact of climate change on human health. Pregnant women, the developing fetus, and young children are marginalized in many countries, and are among the most vulnerable members of society. This article demonstrates that climate change will increase the risk of infant and maternal mortality, birth complications, and poorer reproductive health, especially in tropical, developing countries, with substantial impacts on the health and survival of the next generation of these populations. Research efforts must identify the most vulnerable populations, fill knowledge gaps, and coordinate efforts to reduce negative health consequences of climate change. Increased focus on antenatal care is recommended to prevent worsening maternal health and perinatal mortality and morbidity. Interventions to reduce the negative health impacts caused by climate change are also crucial.
Year: 2013
Source: Global Health Action
Terrestrial wildlife is the primary source of meat for hundreds of millions of people throughout the developing world. Despite widespread human reliance on wildlife for food, the impact of wildlife depletion on human health remains poorly understood. This paper looks at a cohort of 77 preadolescent children (under 12 years of age) in rural northeastern Madagascar and shows that consuming more wildlife was associated with significantly higher hemoglobin concentrations. The research demonstrates that removing access to wildlife would induce a 29% increase in the numbers of children suffering from anemia and a tripling of anemia cases among children in the poorest households. The well-known progression from anemia to future disease demonstrates the powerful and far-reaching effects of lost wildlife access on a variety of human health outcomes, including cognitive, motor, and physical deficits. The research quantifies costs of reduced access to wildlife for a rural community in Madagascar and illuminates pathways that may broadly link reduced natural resource access to declines in childhood health.
Year: 2011
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
New research indicates that voluntary family planning and use of maternal and child health facilities is positively associated with resilience. Resilience has a range of definitions and operates at different scales. It is generally understood as the ability of an individual, household, community, or system to cope with shocks by responding in ways that maintain their essential functions while expanding their capacity to adapt to change. This fact sheet discusses the findings of a study that aimed to determine the factors associated with resilience with the goal of understanding how to build resilience among people in ecologically rich rural regions who rely on natural resources for their livelihoods. The research provides quantitative and qualitative evidence that the association between voluntary family planning and maternal and child health and resilience is robust across a range of factors and broadly related to the construct of resilience.
Year: 2019
Source: Population Reference Bureau
This website is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Knowledge SUCCESS (Strengthening Use , Capacity, Collaboration, Exchange, Synthesis, and Sharing) Project. Knowledge SUCCESS is supported by USAID's Bureau for Global Health, Office of Population and Reproductive Health and let by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP) in partnership with Amref Health Africa, The Busara Center for Behavioral Economics (Busara), and FHI 360. The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of CCP. The information provided on this website does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or the Johns Hopkins University. Read our full Security, Privacy, and Copyright Policies.
