EuroHealthNet’s Annual Seminar on Climate Change and Health: Key Takeaways for the HEART Project
On June 11th, 2025, EuroHealthNet hosted its annual seminar online and in-person at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU in Brussels, Belgium. The seminar was entitled ”Climate Change and Health”, which is a timely subject not only due to upward trends in health-related hazards, exposures, vulnerabilities, and risks related to climate change, but also because of the launch of new initiatives on a European level, such as the launch of the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health (PECCH) by the World Health Organization. The PECCH, which brings together 11 commissioners from across the WHO European region, aims to ‘provide evidence-based arguments and recommendations to help make health systems climate-resilient, slash emissions, and future-proof communities against the growing risks of a rapidly changing planet’.
”Unless we remain vigilant, we may move backwards”
The seminar commenced with an introduction from Suzanne Costello, President of EuroHealthNet and Chief Executive of the Institute of Public Health in Ireland. She emphasised that ‘The health impacts of climate change become more prominent every day,‘ and highlighted the importance of population-level approaches and individual action.
Professor Joacim Rocklöv, the Regional Co-Director for Europe of Lancet Countdown on Climate Change & Health continued, highlighting the lack of sufficiently ambitious adaptation and mitigation strategies in Europe in the face of shocking trends such as a 97% relative increase in the total number of person-days of heatwave exposure between 2012 and 2021 and a heat attributable mortality rate which has increased by 17.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in Europe in the last decade compared to the previous decade. Sinaia Netanyahu, Programme Manager at the WHO Regional Office for Europe discussed the ways that climate change exacerbates current health inequalities, noting that low-income communities, indigenous people, and residents within informal settlements are more likely to live in high-risk areas, and that exposure to health risks related to climate change disproportionately impacts individuals within certain professions, such as the construction industry.
During the second session of the seminar, which focused on taking action, Dorothea Baltruks, Director of the Centre for Planetary Health Policy, spoke about the importance of implementing bottom-up rather than top-down approaches, gathering scientific evidence for the health benefits of climate action, and utilising health as a narrative for climate resilience. Brecht Devleesschauwer, Head of Service Health Information at Sciensano, the Belgian Institute for Health, provided perspective from the point of view of decision-makers, noting that they may be more focused on short-term impact rather than long-term gain, but that producing objective data to define a solution is one strategy that could be used to effectively reach them and advocate for change. He emphasised that the impact of climate change on public health translates into economic impacts, which should be highlighted as these impacts tend to ‘speak louder’ to policymakers.
Key takeaways and next steps for the HEART project
Climate change is not just a health problem- it is an all of society problem which requires multisectoral and community-based approaches in order to promote change. Nature-based solutions (NBS) such as green spaces and roofing are affordable climate adaptation measures with the potential to reduce outside temperatures, which can assist in decreasing heat-related mortality rates while increasing the mental well-being of city dwellers. However, the potential of these measures has not yet been fully harnessed in urban areas, and traditional urban planning and revitalisation strategies tend to overlook health, social, and environmental factors as well as the needs of local communities, which indicate the need for more cooperative approaches when designing responses to climate-related threats.
Furthermore, gaining an understanding of how policymakers make decisions in order to produce a strong evidence base that is relevant for them to utilise is vital. This is where HEART’s Health-Centered Planning Matrix (HCPM) comes in. A key project output, HEART’s HCPM incorporates urban planning criteria, health and clinical data to produce robust evidence to improve public health and wellbeing using specific Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) clusters. Originally conceptualised to support the development of urban planning recommendations from HEART’s three pilot sites- Aarhus, Denmark; Attica, Greece; and Belgrade, Serbia- the HCPM’s recommendations will be broadened to the European level to support sustainable, inclusive, and health-centered urban development throughout the continent in an upcoming workshop.
The workshop will take place online on July 4th, 2025, at 13:30-15:00 CEST and will bring together urban planners, public health professionals, policymakers, and civil society representatives to foster the development and uptake of strategies that will support the implementation of a more health-centered European-level planning paradigm.
More information and a link to register are available HERE.
By Alexandra Olson, Project Officer at the European Health Management Association (EHMA)
