At Ground Zero—Emergency Units in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries Building Resilience for Climate Change and Human Health
Caitlin Rublee, Corey B Bills, Cecilia Sorensen, Jay Lemery, Emilie Calvello Hynes
Abstract
Climate change is harming human health with disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations. As extreme weather events are projected to increase, acute care services—the primary access point for patients during a disaster—will be increasingly stressed. The authors seek to assess current efforts to build resilience against climate‐related events in emergency units in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs). A systematic review was done using Ovid Medline, Embase, Cochrane, and Global Health (CABI), combining LMICs, climate change, emergency care, and resilience terms. LMIC emergency units serve as a ground zero during times of disaster, yet countries have a myriad of emergency care systems, with varied stages of development and a limited capacity for surges in demand. There was little evidence and a paucity of standardization methods for building healthcare facility/system resilience. This study provides policy recommendations for strengthening LMIC emergency care systems to protect lives and advance health equity.