As our earth continues to warm, extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and severe, leading to significant health risks to communities around the globe. Populations such as pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and health workers are some of the groups most heavily impacted.
Exposure to heat stress during pregnancy significantly raises the risk of complications such as pre-eclampsia, stillbirth and preterm birth. While the effects on health workers aren’t as well studied, they can sometimes work in uncomfortably hot conditions that could have impacts such as lack of motivation, impact on quality of care and effects on their physical and mental health.
Heat Action Day, which was held on 2 June, provided an opportunity to highlight the increasing impacts of extreme heat and raise awareness of programmes and actions addressing the climate crisis to try to ‘Beat the Heat.’ For Heat Action Day, HIGH Horizons reflected on the project and the advancements made over the past 21 months.
HIGH Horizons, managed by Ghent University, has made significant progress in advancing research and innovations which directly address the impacts of heat on health. The projects aims to understand the risks of heat, identify methods to monitor impacts, as well as find ways to reduce CO2 emissions and develop interventions that protect individuals and communities. Find out more about the project’s progress to date on the HIGH Horizons website.
