ENBEL: Connecting health and climate change research

“Climate change is already affecting public health, both directly and indirectly. But in order to provide integrated and evidence-based policy advice for mitigating the impacts of climate change on human health, more collaboration between climate change and health researchers is needed”, says Kristin Aunan, Senior Researcher at CICERO Center for International Climate Research and project coordinator of the EU funded project ‘Enhancing Belmont Research Action to support EU policy making on climate change and health (ENBEL)’.

Climate change and health links

By bringing together leaders in climate change and health research, ENBEL aims to support EU, international and national policy making with the aim of shaping low-carbon economies and build climate resilience.

More specifically, ENBEL will coordinate a network of major international health and climate research projects under the Belmont Forum’s Collaborative Research Action (CRA) on Climate, Environment and Health (CEH), EU-funded and relevant nationally funded projects. The project will engage with policymakers and key stakeholders at EU, national and international level, as well as in low and middle income countries (LMIC).

In the call for proposals, the European Commission recognized that bringing together climate change and health research has been a particular challenge in Europe that requires coordination and support.

The network will synthesize science-based evidence on climate change and health links, identify knowledge gaps and co-produce with stakeholders a series of tailor-made knowledge products.

The key thematic focus is on environmental and occupational heat, air pollution (including from wildfires) and climate-sensitive infectious diseases, with specific attention given to high-risk groups and populations.

Bottom-up approach

The overall concept of ENBEL is a bottom-up approach to networking and cooperation across the often separate worlds of climate and health research communities.

The project consortium is multidisciplinary and includes 17 partners from 11 European countries as well as from Botswana, Kenya, and South Africa. Together the partners have competencies in medicine, epidemiology, public health, climate and air quality modelling, health impact assessment and economics. Specialists in science and policy communication and stakeholder engagement are also included.

“ENBEL brings together a consortium of researchers whose work generates actionable knowledge on how climate change-health risks will develop under global warming, what the social costs are as well as cost-efficient and equitable mitigation and adaptation strategies, “ says Aunan.

ENBEL is funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme and runs from November 2020 until October 2023.

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Follow the project and learn more at the project website enbel-project.eu