Project 460977

In Canada, there is limited investment in policies that respond to the realities of a changing climate and its effect on population health. Given the direct and indirect effects of climate change that extend beyond the health sector, Canadian governments at all levels need to significantly increase investment in interventions that promote overall health and well-being and prevent disease, instead of treating the consequences of poor health. For example, communities in rural and remote regions of Canada are more vulnerable to chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes which are linked to upstream causes like food insecurity. Solutions like local farming initiatives can be help to ensure food security in rural and remote communities by increasing access to nutritious food and reducing the cost of transporting food to these regions. We want to identify existing community-grown solutions that enable rural and remote communities in British Columbia cope with increased health vulnerabilities. We also want to understand public preferences on interventions to improve health in a changing climate. In planning towards achieving this goal, we will 1) conduct a scoping review to understand how public preferences and priorities in the context of health and climate change have been investigated, 2) explore the questions community members and decision makers have about the health vulnerabilities they face and ways to adapt given the various constraints they experience, and 3) bring together researchers, community leaders and policy experts in a forum to plan a multidisciplinary program of research to explore these questions. Our proposed planning activity will be a solid foundation for the implementation of our research project, as it will position us well to answer the core questions of communities and policy makers. This work will highlight areas for collaboration between sectors of the government and how they can be designed to maximize improvements in population health.