Climate change and impacts research: the Mediterranean environment (CIRCE)
CIRCE, a project co-funded by the European Union, aimed at reducing vulnerability to climate change in the Mediterranean region. Increasing temperatures and reduced precipitation could bring new threats to human health, ecosystems and national economies of the Mediterranean region, and add to existing problems of desertification, water scarcity and food production.
WHO/Europe is the main author of the health chapter in the CIRCE comprehensive final assessment. The chapter focuses on the health effects of climate change in the Mediterranean region, particularly heat-waves in combination with air pollution, and on potentially changing patterns of infectious diseases.
CIRCE’s comprehensive assessment of climate change impacts in this region, the first ever produced, provides policy-makers and the public with information on current and potential impacts, including on health, and on ways to modify services and infrastructure to respond to the climate change challenge.
Assessment of the health impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean region
WHO/Europe coordinated CIRCE’s research line on health, including technical activities, capacity building and identification of policy options. Specific activities included:
- training of epidemiologists and health workers in assessing the health effects of climate change;
- assessment of the health effects of extreme temperatures in combination with air pollution in 10 Mediterranean cities (Athens, Barcelona, Bari, Istanbul, Lisbon, Palermo, Roma, Tel Aviv, Tunis, Valencia);
- review of infectious diseases most sensitive to climate change;
- identification of research and adaptation needs to reduce the health effects.
