Climate Change and Health: Panel Discussion on Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation within the Health Sector
Date:
25 Sep 2023 (Monday)
Time:
3pm – 4.30pm
Venue:
NUS MD1 Seminar Room 1 (Tahir Foundation Building, 12 Science Drive 2, Level 8, Seminar Room 1, Singapore 117549)
Synopsis:
Climate change is currently the greatest threat to human health and requires innovative solutions to support health and environmental goals. This panel will examine the impacts of climate change on health, adaptation measures by health systems and how the health sector can contribute to mitigating climate change by reducing emissions. Panellists will discuss firsthand experience responding to climate-driven cholera epidemics in Bangladesh, planning and supporting policies for malaria elimination in the face of climate change and developing a world-class net zero emission health service in the United Kingdom. The programme will include a moderated discussion amongst panellists, followed by a Q&A with audiences.
This is an event jointly organised by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and the Centre on Sustainable Medicine at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. The panel will be moderated by Dr Kimberly Fornace and Dr Amanda Zain.
Speakers:
Prof Nick Watts
Director
Centre on Sustainable Medicine, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Professor Watts is the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Medicine, leading NUS’s efforts to accelerate the transition to net zero and resilient healthcare systems, across the world. Prior to NUS, he worked as the Chief Sustainability Officer for the NHS in the UK, where he spearheaded their efforts to efforts to deliver low-carbon healthcare, leading the Greener NHS team with a budget of almost S$1 billion. He is a medical doctor, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians’ Faculty of Public Health, and has worked as the Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown, and as the founder of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.
Dr Munirul Alam
Senior Scientist
International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b)
Dr. Munirul Alam is a Senior Scientist and Head, Molecular Ecology and Metagenomics Laboratory, icddr,b. His academic career began at Dhaka University and was an Associate Professor of Microbiology before joining icdd,b in 2003. His research focuses mainly on climate and cholera including genomics to reveal the source and transmission of the disease, AMR of enteric pathogens, and metagenomics of gut and vaginal microbiota. Dr. Alam is a member of the WHO Global Task Force for Cholera Control, a Fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS), the American Academy of Microbiology, and the Univ. of Technology Sydney. He has authored 200 peer-reviewed articles including books, and was awarded BAS Gold Medal. Dr. Alam is a Member of the International Committee on the Science Need for Microbial Forensics, a Senior Faculty of Johns Hopkins University, USA, the Asian University for Women, and a Professor (Adj.) at North South University. He served as the Chair, Keynote and Plenary Speakers at International meetings, and Editor of peer-reviewed journals.
Dr Zulkhairul Naim Bin Sidek Ahmad
Senior Medical Lecturer
Department of Public Health Medicine, University of Malaysia Sabah
Dr Zulkhairul Naim bin Sidek Ahmad is a Head of Department, the Department of Medical Education and Senior Medical Lecturer at the Department of Public Health Medicine, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), respectively. He obtained a Medical Degree from Universiti Sains Malaysia (2009), Master of Public Health from the University of Dundee (2016), Master of Science in Healthy Aging, Medical Aesthetic and Regenerative Medicine from UCSI University (2018) and PhD from the University of Manchester (2021).
His main research focus is on health equity looking at the impact of the climate change and strengthen the climate resilience among vulnerable populations. Currently, he is doing research related to pesticide exposure assessment among farmers, nutritional status among children and one health issues. The pesticide exposure project is mainly looking at the exposure level among farmers in main agricultural areas in Malaysia who being exposed to pesticide and how climate change speeds up pesticide degradation. At the same time, he is also doing a project on nutritional status among vulnerable infant and young children living in slum areas in Sabah. This project is funded by UNICEF to address the impact of COVID-19 on nutritional status among vulnerable population. The preliminary findings showed that the COVID-19 pandemic as well as climate change worsening children malnutrition and impacting the other causes such as nutrient quality and economic. Recently, He received a funding from SEAOHUN (SEAOHUN) to tackle anti-microbial resistance (AMR) by providing health education among primary school students in rural areas in Sabah.
He believes that the world needs leaders with the courage, drive and leadership skills to fight climate change and help restore the natural world. He hopes that he can be one of them.
Moderators:
Dr Kimberly Fornance
Visiting Senior Research Fellow
NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
Kimberly’s research focuses on the impact of environmental change on infectious disease dynamics. She uses a range of Earth Observation data, geostatistical methods and machine learning approaches to monitor environmental change and assess the impacts on infectious disease transmission. Based in Malaysian Borneo for over 6 years, a core focus of this work has been characterizing the spatial epidemiology of emerging zoonotic malaria in Malaysia and the Philippines and evaluating associations with deforestation and other land use changes. Her current research program is funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society and aims to identify how environmental data can be integrated into infectious disease surveillance systems.
Dr Amanda Zain
Assistant Dean (Sustainability)
Deputy Director, Centre for Sustainable Medicine (CoSM)
NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Consultant Paediatrician
Khoo Teck Puat – National University Children’s Medical Institute
National University Hospital
Dr Amanda Zain is a Consultant Paediatrician in the Children’s Emergency, Khoo Teck Puat-National University Children’s Medical Institute at the National University Hospital (NUH). She also serves as Assistant Dean of Sustainability and Enterprise at her alma mater, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS. She is a mother to two young children, who, like many of her patients, are in the demographic that will experience up to 88% of the health burden of climate change. After receiving her MBBS as a recipient of the Public Service Commission Medicine scholarship, Amanda was conferred Master of Medicine (Paediatrics) by NUS and completed her paediatrics training at NUH. She began her journey in sustainability in 2017, where as a senior resident she led a twin quality improvement project across the paediatric ward and operating theatre to increase the recycling rate by threefold within 6 months. These days, Amanda is actively involved in learning about and advocating for sustainability in the medical school and among health professionals, as well as supporting the development of the Centre for Sustainable Medicine (CoSM) at NUS Medicine as Deputy Director. She is currently involved in a cross-departmental quality improvement project to reduce metered dose inhaler prescriptions, and also serves as the Green QI lead in the QIPS programme for residents.