As this year’s International Digital Health Week, November 4 to 10, 2024, (DHW2024) comes to a close, the spotlight turns toward addressing an urgent global challenge at the UN Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan (COP29). This timely overlap provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the role digital health innovations play in shaping not only the future of healthcare but also our response to the climate crisis.
Throughout Digital Health Week, one of the key themes was the growing recognition of climate change as a social determinant of health. As rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and shifting ecosystems increasingly affect communities worldwide, the health implications are becoming undeniable. But how can we leverage digital technology to respond to these challenges? From the collection and linkage of climate-sensitive health data to telemedicine platforms that connect vulnerable populations with healthcare providers remotely, digital health innovations are offering new ways to monitor, prevent, and treat the health effects of a changing climate. As the UN Climate Change Conference begins, this question becomes even more pressing: how can we harness the power of digital tools not only to understand the scope of climate-related health risks but also to drive meaningful action for both human health and the planet’s future?
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals offer a critical framework for addressing these interconnected challenges. Goals like Good Health and Wellbeing, Climate Action, and Clean Water and Sanitation are inextricably linked, and achieving them requires a holistic, cross-disciplinary approach. No longer can we tackle climate change, health, and sustainability in isolation. To address the complex realities of a changing world, data systems must transcend traditional boundaries—combining environmental data with health data, and uniting experts from diverse fields, including health organizations, climate scientists, urban planners, and policymakers. By creating integrated systems that allow for the sharing and analysis of data across sectors, we can develop more robust and effective solutions to mitigate the health risks associated with climate change.
World Data System (WDS) is playing an essential role in fostering this kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration. With its rich legacy of data stewardship from the International Geophysical Year and the International Polar Year, WDS has a comprehensive membership of environmental data repositories that provide invaluable insights into global ecosystems. These resources have long served the environmental and geophysical sciences, but as our understanding of climate change’s impact on public health deepens, WDS is expanding its efforts to include more health data repositories.
These trustworthy, interoperable data repositories are essential for curating, preserving, and providing access to data relevant to climate health. WDS’s efforts include integrating best practices and standards to ensure seamless data sharing through metadata schemas, data formats, or exchange protocols. This fosters the development of federated systems and research data commons that can pool data, enabling better research tools and insights. For example, the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health Beacon protocol (GA4GH Beacon) serves as a model of a federated system, while the Global Open Research Commons International Model (GORC Model) and the upcoming Health Data Commons GORC Profile will help enhance public health surveillance and climate health research.
As COP29 commences, the convergence of International Digital Health Week and the climate summit serves as a powerful reminder: the tools to combat the health impacts of climate change are within our grasp. Digital innovation and collaborative data-sharing initiatives like those supported by WDS empower us to confront this global crisis head-on. By embracing a holistic approach that unites health data with environmental data and fostering collaboration across disciplines, we can develop targeted strategies, predict future risks, and ensure the well-being of our planet and its people.