Harmonized indicators for climate and health are key to accessing funds and achieving equity

The panel “How to measure success: harmonization of climate and health indicators” was held at the Forecasting Healthy Futures Global Summit 2025, which took place from April 8 to 10. The event brought together international leaders from the fields of science and public health to reflect on the importance of developing and using harmonized indicators to monitor the impacts of climate change on health and to evaluate the effectiveness of the responses implemented.

The session was moderated by Anna Stewart Ibarra, Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI). Panelists included Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, Head of the Climate Change and Health Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO); Stella Hartinger, Associate Professor and Researcher at the Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia, director of the Latin American Center for Research on Climate Change and Health (CLIMA), and director of the Lancet Countdown for Latin America; Sheetal Lookhar, global head of health and nutrition at Save the Children International; and Andrea Ferreira, senior researcher at CIDACS, a Fiocruz research center in Brazil specializing in the integration of large volumes of health and social data.

During the exchange, the participants agreed on several key points for moving towards more effective and fairer monitoring and intervention systems. They also highlighted several central elements for moving towards effective, evidence-based and equity-focused policies:

• Having clear and functional indicators is essential for assessing the impacts of climate change on health and measuring the effectiveness of measures such as early warning systems.
• Global indicators must be adapted to national and local contexts, taking into account the particularities and vulnerabilities of each territory.
• There is a critical gap in indicators that address the impacts on maternal health, an aspect that requires priority attention.
• Equity and vulnerability must be integrated across the board in measurement systems, to ensure an inclusive and fair response.
• The lack of perfect indicators should not be a pretext for inaction. It is possible — and necessary — to act with the best available information.
• Strengthening surveillance systems is now a key priority. The ability to monitor climate, health, environmental and social indicator data in an integrated manner is essential to assess what is happening and guide decision-making.

The panelists emphasized the growing need for attribution studies that allow for the establishment, with scientific evidence, of the link between extreme weather events —such as heat waves— and specific health consequences, such as increased mortality or cardiovascular disease. This type of study requires robust and integrated surveillance systems capable of collecting and analyzing data in real time. It is even more important in the context of the international loss and damage mechanisms established in recent climate negotiations. For countries to access compensation funds, they must have clear and quantifiable evidence of the impact of climate change on their populations. 

However, participants noted that the regions most vulnerable to and affected by these impacts tend to have the most fragile surveillance systems, which represents a serious obstacle to accessing these resources and adequately visualizing the damage suffered. They also questioned whether adequate information is really being collected to generate the indicators that are needed today, and whether current systems are capable of capturing the complexity of the impacts of climate change on health.

This dialogue reaffirms the need to consolidate international cooperation, strengthen national surveillance and research capacities, and promote dialogue between science, public policy and civil society. Building resilient and evidence-based systems is an indispensable condition for protecting the health of populations in the face of an increasingly changing climate.

Learn more about the event at: https://www.forecastinghealthyfuturessummit.org/