This dialogue is archived with 3 entries. 

Comments: The core research activity of this collaborative research network (CRN) is the effect of climate on malaria and dengue in the Americas, linking morbidity with seasonal to interannual climatic variability. There are, however, many aspects of social vulnerability in a conceptual model on the CHIEX website: file:///C:/My%20Documents/iai/chiex/crn_source/conceptual_model.htm

What do we know about infrastructure, demographics, individual factors and risk perceptions of the people affected? What about the possible responses and adaptive strategies to mitigate impacts? How should we communicate to decision-makers and the public even while considerable uncertainty remains in predicting the impact of malaria and dengue outbreaks?

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

Participant name: Joan Aron

Affiliation: Science Communication Studies, CRN/CHIEX

Country: USA

Comments: An interesting example is the city of Rio de Janeiro where about 1 million people live in shanty towns, many of them at the slopes of hills, in areas prone to landslides.The local government has set up a meteorological early warning system based on 37 automatic weather stations located strategically in places where historically the landslides have occurred. These stations send real time information on precipitation and whenever it reaches the threshold of 50 mm/24 hours a warning is issued to the civil defense. This service approaches people at risk to convince them to leave their houses temporarily and go to public shelters provided by them. However, due to the high crime rate in these communities people are reluctant to leave their homes and have their houses invaded. What makes these communities vulnerable is poverty which drives them to settle in these risk areas. Although good technology has been set it has been of little use so far because the structural vulnerability of the people has not been changed by adequate public policies and interventions.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Participant name: Ulisses Confalonieri

Affiliation: FIOCRUZ

Country: BRAZIL

Comments: Initial comments. Some social and demographic factors to be considered on climate extremes and public health include:

Poverty. Basically poor urban and rural population are at special risk in situations of climate extremes. Examples in Mexico include the suburban population living in Acapulco that were specially affected by hurricanes.

Deforestation linked with poor peasant populations. Many coffee producers were affected in Oaxaca because of the soil loss during this same climate extremes.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Participant name: HORACIO RIOJAS

Affiliation: ISAT-INSP

Country: MEXICO

Diagnostics and prediction of climate variability and human health impacts in the tropical Americas