From Evidence to Action: Climate-Proofing Maternal and Newborn Health Systems Against Extreme Heat
Wits RHI | Johannesburg | South Africa
Workshop | 11am – 1pm, SAST (Find Local Time)
Duration: 2 Hours
Platform: MS Teams
Description: Extreme heat is increasingly becoming a maternal, newborn and health-system challenge, yet climate adaptation policies often remain disconnected from the realities of pregnancy, frontline healthcare delivery and resource-constrained communities.
This applied policy workshop will draw on implementation experience from South Africa to demonstrate how climate-health evidence can be translated into practical action across the maternal and newborn health system. Using lessons from Wits RHI’s HAPI and HIGH Horizons programme implementation, the session will move from identifying heat exposure and vulnerability to examining feasible interventions at individual, household, healthcare facility, community and health-system levels.
Participants will explore evidence on heat exposure during pregnancy, barriers to individual adaptation, occupational heat strain among healthcare workers and vulnerabilities within maternity care environments. The workshop will then examine practical responses including heat-health education, hydration and cooling measures, reflective roofing, shade and vegetation, facility-level adaptations, health-worker protection and heat early-warning approaches.
The session will demonstrate how policymakers can build layered climate resilience by combining individual, household, community, facility and system-level responses. Particular attention will be given to implementation in settings characterised by poverty, infrastructure constraints and limited resources, where adaptation measures must be both effective and feasible.