The Climate Change Act (2008), a legally binding framework to cut carbon emissions, commits the UK Government to carry out an assessment of the risks of climate change in the UK every five years. The first Climate Change Risk Assessment, assessing current and future risks in 11 sectors including public health, will be laid before Parliament in January 2012. This assessment focuses on the largest risks and opportunities, discussing in detail and providing quantitative estimates for some of the risks in the health sector. The risks for the health sector have been clustered under three topics: (a) population health and wellbeing, (b) health care services, facilities and Infrastructure, and (c) environmental health. Climate-related extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and floods, which are predicted to become more frequent and intense in the UK over the 21st century, are the main cause for concern. Other likely impacts include increased ground-level ozone and pollen concentrations exacerbating respiratory illness, more cases of skin cancer due to higher exposure to solar UV radiation, and potentially more imported cases of vector-borne diseases. Certain medical specialities, such as respiratory medicine, mental health, and accidents and emergencies, are likely to be significantly burdened due to their clinical activity, ease of public access and public health roles. Climate change presents complex socioeconomic challenges which could act as risk magnifiers in the future and the UK public health sector will need to adapt and respond to these challenges.

About the speaker

Dr Sotiris Vardoulakis is a Specialist Environmental Scientist at the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, at the UK Health Protection Agency, an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and a Fellow of the Institution of Environmental Sciences and the Institute of Air Quality Management (UK). He read physics at the University of Athens (Greece) and University of Madrid (Spain), and later obtained an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London and a PhD in Air Pollution from the University of Greenwich (UK). Sotiris worked as course director, lecturer and researcher at LSHTM, University of Birmingham (UK), University of Aveiro (Portugal), Sussex Air Quality Partnership (UK), and INERIS institute (France). He has a wide range of research interests and activities in the field of public and environmental health, covering the effects of climate change on health, climate change adaptation in urban areas, assessment of public and environmental health interventions, air pollution monitoring and modelling, environmental exposure and risk assessment, air quality management and environmental sustainability in high and low income countries.Sotiris has been involved as the Health Sector Champion in the First UK Climate change Risk Assessment. He is currently seconded at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU (from August 2011 to July 2012). 

Details

Where: Canberra Museum and Gallery, London Circuit
When: April 19, 2012 11.30am-12.30pm followed by refreshments
Register: http://vard-canberra.eventbrite.com