9 December 2024: The University of Canberra’s HEAL Global Research Centre has been awarded a $5 million grant from Wellcome to develop climate and health impact assessment tools to communicate the health impacts from bushfires and associated smoke haze to priority populations in the face of climate change.
Global warming is increasing the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme wildfires and smoke haze pollution in Southeast Asia and Australia. This in turn worsens respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, such as asthma, in sensitive populations.
“Climate change is not just an environmental crisis, but also a health crisis,” said Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis, Professor of Environmental Public Health at the University’s Health Research Institute and Director of HEAL (Healthy Environment and Lives) Global Research Centre.
“HEAL’s CANBREATHE (Climate Attribution of Wildfire Smoke Impacts on Priority Population Health in Southeast Asia and Australia) project will combine climate modelling, health data and storylines to communicate the long-term effects of bushfires and smoke haze pollution exposure,” said Professor Vardoulakis.
“People are starting to understand the health impacts posed by wildfire smoke – however, they often do not clearly link these to climate or environmental change. It is important to develop data-driven communication tools for priority groups, including Indigenous people, pregnant women and children, who are disproportionately affected by extreme levels of pollution and heat.”
Researchers from the Australian HEAL Network and Southeast Asia will focus on communications for populations in four countries – Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, and Australia – due to these populations’ lived experiences of suffering extreme or recurrent wildfires. In 2015, 100,000 Indonesians died due to smoke haze from wildfires in Sumatra, while in Australia, 417 deaths were attributed to the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires.
Distinguished Professor Kim Oanh from the Asia Institute of Technology in Thailand said, “air pollution from forest and agricultural fires is a major public health concern in Southeast Asia.”
“These seasonal fires cause deforestation and smoke haze across the region, disproportionally impacting poorer people, especially children. Climate change increases the risk of fires making things worse.”
Associate Professor Veronica Matthews, the HEAL Network’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lead from the University of Sydney, said that CANBREATHE “is a very exciting opportunity to build on the Network’s momentum of linking climate, environmental and health data with cultural knowledge.
“This project will engage Indigenous peoples and communities, citizen scientists, policymakers and artists to co-design communication tools to educate and empower those communities who are already feeling the impact of climate change.”
“A healthy Country means healthy people,” said Professor Vardoulakis. “This project is very much embedded in Indigenous cultures.”
The CANBREATHE grant will be funded by Wellcome for three years, commencing in 2025. For more information visit the HEAL Network website.
The other organisations included in the CANBREATHE project are:
- Asian Institute of Technology
- Charles Darwin University
- Chiang Mai University
- Curtin University
- Department of Climate Change and Environment (Thailand)
- Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (Thailand)
- Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation
- Kopernik (Indonesia)
- Mahidol University
- Ministry of Health (Laos)
- National University of Laos
- NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (Australia)
- NSW Ministry of Health (Australia)
- Queensland University of Technology
- Technical University of Crete
- University of Health Sciences (Laos)
- University of Indonesia
- University of Sydney
- University of Tasmania
Images: CANBREATHE, supplied; wildfire in Indonesia 2019, AFP (CCO).
