Aboriginal people living in very remote desert communities hold strong local environmental knowledge to inform effective climate adaptation. At the same time, remote desert communities are at risk to climatic changes due to geographic isolation, poor quality of infrastructure available to moderate extreme weather, limited economic resources, limited access to health services, existing health burdens and greater dependence on the environment for social, cultural and economic well-being.
Primary Health Care (PHC) providers who operate at the local community level and have established relationships with community members can play a significant role in responding to climate change through the implementation of awareness programs, preventive health measures and supporting community advocacy.
The project builds on the rationale that a “one-size-fits-all” adaptation approach that doesn’t consider the unique socio-economic and environmental circumstances of very remote Australian communities and PHC services will exacerbate climate change related health impacts. There is a dearth of evidence on how climatic changes affect the health of very remote communities and place additional stress on PHC delivery. The lack of evidence could be attributed to the poor environmental health monitoring in very remote communities. For effective climate adaptation in very remote communities, it is essential that researchers, remote health service staff and remote community members work together to explore environmental health impacts and co-design effective risk reduction measures.
This project will synthesise local environmental knowledge, PHC staff observations, data from citizen scientists and PHC utilisation trends related to environmental extremes to design contextual and community acceptable risk reduction measures.
The overall goal of the project is to co-design, implement and evaluate effective adaptation solutions relevant for very remote desert communities.
Objective 1: Synthesise lived/living experiences of Aboriginal people residing in very remote desert Australia, to inform the co-design, implementation and qualitative evaluation of contextually appropriate risk reduction measures.
Objective 2: To improve community engagement and environmental health awareness by crowdsourcing environment data in remote communities.
Objective 3: To document and better understand staff experiences and observations of the effects of extreme weather on community members, remote clinic use patterns, staff workloads, staff retention and recruitment to assist PHC service planning under a changing climate.
Objective 4: To examine the association between extreme weather events and PHC utilisation and inform health services and residents about the risks.
Chief Investigator:
Funders:
Collaborators:
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Prof Alan Cass, Menzies School of Health Research
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Prof Linda Ford, Charles Darwin University
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Prof Sotiris Vardoulakis, University of Canberra
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A Prof Deborah Russell, Menzies School of Health Research
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A Prof Jamie Ranse, Griffith University
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Dr Abdolvahab Baghbanian, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress
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Dr Rosalie Schultz, Ngaanyatjarra health service
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Ms Lorna Murakami-Gold, Flinders University
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Dr Prabhakar Veginadu, Charles Sturt University
