Climate Change and Human Health Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Public Health Manager, Environmental Health Officer and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-PH-045

Before you join: Participants should have working familiarity with public health practice, health service delivery, environmental health, emergency planning or health policy.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Climate hazards are affecting heat illness, infectious disease patterns, food and water security, air quality, disaster injury and mental health. Public health teams must translate climate evidence into decisions about surveillance, prevention, service continuity and protection of populations facing the greatest exposure. This requires more than climate awareness: professionals need defensible risk assessments, clear thresholds for action and adaptation measures that can be funded, monitored and improved.

This five-day Climate Change and Human Health Training Course examines the pathways through which climate hazards affect health and health systems. Participants use the IPCC risk framework, WHO vulnerability and adaptation assessment approach, health equity impact assessment and climate-resilient health systems framework. They learn to interpret climate-health evidence, select indicators, assess vulnerability, develop heat-health and infectious disease responses, strengthen facility resilience, and communicate risk under uncertainty. Cases address public health agencies, hospitals, humanitarian settings, municipal services and workplace health programmes.

Teaching combines focused briefings, facilitated case analysis, group risk assessment, scenario-based planning and structured application planning. Participants work with climate, health, service and population data to identify priority risks and select proportionate controls. They leave with a climate-health risk assessment pack containing a causal pathway model, vulnerability scoring matrix, adaptation option appraisal, monitoring indicators and an action plan for a defined service area or population.

The course is suited to public health, healthcare, environmental health, emergency management, policy and sustainability professionals who have responsibility for population health outcomes or continuity of health services.

What you will be able to do

  • Interpret IPCC climate-health risk evidence to identify priority hazards and affected populations
  • Construct climate-health causal pathway diagrams linking hazards, exposures, vulnerability and outcomes
  • Conduct a WHO-style vulnerability and adaptation assessment using health and climate data
  • Design heat-health action plans with warning thresholds, protective actions and referral arrangements
  • Assess climate-sensitive infectious disease, food, water and air-quality risks using surveillance indicators
  • Develop climate-resilient health service continuity measures for facilities, staff, supplies and utilities
  • Apply health equity impact assessment to adaptation options and identify unintended harms
  • Produce a climate-health action plan with indicators, owners, milestones and decision requests

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Build credible climate-health risk assessments for programmes, facilities or local populations
  • Use heat warning thresholds and protective actions in operational public health plans
  • Interpret climate-sensitive surveillance data without overstating causation or certainty
  • Frame adaptation proposals using equity, feasibility, cost and health impact criteria
  • Present climate-health recommendations clearly to senior leaders and community partners

For your organisation

  • Improves identification of climate risks before they disrupt health services or population health
  • Strengthens heat, flood, smoke and infectious disease preparedness arrangements
  • Supports defensible adaptation investments using documented vulnerability and option assessments
  • Reduces unequal health impacts through targeted protection of high-risk populations
  • Creates measurable climate-health actions with named owners, indicators and review points

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain climate-health risk pathways and interpret the strength of available evidence.

  • Greenhouse forcing, aerosols and land-use change linked to climate hazards
  • IPCC risk framework: hazard, exposure, vulnerability and response capacity
  • Distinguishing climate variability, long-term change and extreme-event attribution
  • Direct, indirect and socially mediated pathways from hazards to illness
  • Climate-sensitive health outcomes classified by mortality, morbidity and distribution
  • Reading confidence language and uncertainty statements in IPCC health evidence

Participants can select and interpret climate-health indicators for surveillance and decision-making.

  • Climate-health causal diagrams connecting drivers, exposures, susceptibility and outcomes
  • Selecting indicators by hazard, population group, place and decision purpose
  • Routine surveillance data assessed for completeness, timeliness, representativeness and bias
  • Excess mortality estimation using expected baselines and observed death counts
  • Time-series associations interpreted with lag structures, seasonality and confounding
  • Disaggregating health data by age, sex, disability, income and location
  • Data governance controls for consent, confidentiality, access and indigenous data sovereignty

Participants can conduct a structured vulnerability and adaptation assessment for a priority health risk.

  • WHO vulnerability and adaptation assessment stages applied to priority health risks
  • Scoping assessment questions, geographic boundaries, time horizons and stakeholder roles
  • Exposure mapping combines hazard layers, population data and service locations
  • Vulnerability scoring weights sensitivity, adaptive capacity and unequal burden
  • Stakeholder interviews validate local knowledge, service constraints and feasible actions
  • Risk matrices document likelihood, consequence, uncertainty and control priorities

Participants can develop heat-health measures for communities, workers and health services.

  • Heat-health action plans triggered by forecast thresholds and local mortality evidence
  • Heat early-warning systems link meteorological alerts to public-health actions
  • Identifying high-risk groups: older adults, outdoor workers, infants and homeless people
  • Cooling-centre protocols address access, transport, safeguarding and infection control
  • Occupational heat controls use work-rest cycles, hydration and acclimatisation
  • Urban heat-island mitigation assessed through shade, vegetation, housing and materials

Participants can assess climate-sensitive infectious disease risks and select surveillance responses.

  • Climate suitability models explain shifting vector ranges and transmission seasons
  • Integrated vector management combines surveillance, source reduction and targeted control
  • Early detection thresholds connect entomological, clinical and laboratory surveillance
  • Zoonotic spillover risks assessed through One Health surveillance arrangements
  • Water temperature and salinity effects on waterborne pathogen persistence
  • Antimicrobial stewardship considerations during climate-related infectious disease surges

Participants can identify climate-related food, water and nutrition threats to population health.

  • Food-system climate shocks linked to undernutrition, food prices and dietary quality
  • Household food insecurity measured using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale
  • Flood-related water contamination pathways traced from source to household storage
  • Water safety plans identify hazards, control measures and operational monitoring
  • Sanitation service disruptions assessed for faecal-oral transmission and outbreak risk
  • Nutrition surveillance uses wasting, stunting, anaemia and market indicators

Participants can integrate physical and mental health protection into climate emergency planning.

  • Wildfire smoke health messaging uses PM2.5 forecasts and exposure reduction measures
  • Air-quality health impact assessment separates climate pollutants from co-emitted pollutants
  • Disaster risk management applies Sendai priorities to health-sector preparedness
  • Mass-casualty surge planning defines triage, referral, staffing and supply triggers
  • Psychological first aid principles support displaced populations after climate emergencies
  • Climate-related mental health effects include distress, grief, anxiety and trauma

Participants can identify service continuity and emissions reduction measures for health systems.

  • WHO climate-resilient health systems framework assessed across six building blocks
  • Facility climate-risk assessments cover buildings, utilities, equipment and access routes
  • Service continuity plans specify alternate sites, staffing pools and essential functions
  • Climate-informed supply-chain mapping identifies cold-chain, transport and supplier dependencies
  • Low-carbon healthcare measures compare procurement, energy, waste and clinical pathways
  • Health-care waste management reduces emissions while maintaining infection prevention requirements
  • Resilient primary care integrates outreach, referral systems and community feedback

Participants can compare adaptation options using health, equity, feasibility and cost criteria.

  • Adaptation options screened for effectiveness, feasibility, equity, cost and co-benefits
  • Health equity impact assessment identifies distributional effects and unintended harms
  • Participatory planning includes communities facing marginalisation in intervention design
  • Nature-based interventions assessed for health benefits, maintenance and displacement risks
  • Cost-effectiveness analysis compares intervention costs with avoided illness and deaths
  • Maladaptation tests identify actions increasing emissions, exclusion or future vulnerability

Participants can prepare an accountable climate-health action plan for workplace implementation.

  • National adaptation plans aligned with health-sector mandates, budgets and accountability
  • Policy briefs frame climate-health evidence, recommendations, costs and decision requests
  • Risk communication applies message mapping, trusted messengers and uncertainty statements
  • Climate-health indicators assigned baselines, targets, owners, frequency and data sources
  • Monitoring dashboards distinguish implementation outputs, service outcomes and health impacts
  • Personal application plans define a priority risk, stakeholders, milestones and measures

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Climate-health causal pathway model
  2. WHO vulnerability and adaptation assessment template
  3. Heat-health action plan checklist
  4. Health service climate-risk assessment matrix
  5. Adaptation option appraisal scorecard
  6. Climate-health monitoring and action plan

Who should attend

  • Public Health Manager — responsible for climate-sensitive population health programmes and prevention planning
  • Environmental Health Officer — assesses environmental exposures, community risks and regulatory controls
  • Hospital or Health Service Manager — protects service continuity during heat, floods and infrastructure disruption
  • Epidemiologist or Surveillance Officer — interprets climate-sensitive disease and mortality data
  • Emergency Preparedness Manager — plans health-sector readiness for climate-related emergencies
  • Health Policy or Sustainability Adviser — develops adaptation priorities, investment cases and accountability measures

Skills and tools covered

Climate-health risk assessmentVulnerability analysisHeat-health planningHealth surveillance designService continuity planningAdaptation option appraisal

Tools and standards

IPCC risk framework, WHO Climate Change and Health Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment, WHO Operational Framework for Building Climate Resilient and Low Carbon Health Systems, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish scientific and public health principles, followed by case work drawn from heatwaves, flooding, wildfire smoke, infectious disease and health facility disruption. Participants analyse sample climate and health data, build causal pathway diagrams, score vulnerabilities and compare adaptation options. Group exercises test decisions under forecast uncertainty and constrained resources. Facilitated discussion examines equity, ethics and communication challenges. Each participant develops an application plan for a relevant health risk, service or population.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have working familiarity with public health practice, health service delivery, environmental health, emergency planning or health policy. They should be comfortable reading basic charts, rates, maps and short technical reports. Experience with climate policy, epidemiology modelling, geographic information systems or carbon accounting is not required. The course explains the climate science and public health concepts needed for the assessments used. Participants will gain most value by bringing a current or anticipated climate-health issue from their workplace, such as heat risk, flooding, vector-borne disease or facility disruption.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should understand basic public health, health service, environmental health or emergency planning work. Climate science, advanced epidemiology, geographic information systems and carbon accounting are not required.

Bring a laptop if possible, as participants work with templates, sample data and planning documents. A current workplace issue, such as heat risk, flooding, smoke exposure or service disruption, will help you produce a relevant action plan.

It is designed for public health practitioners, health service managers, environmental health officers, epidemiologists, emergency planners and health policy advisers. It also suits sustainability professionals whose remit includes health service resilience.

The course focuses specifically on climate drivers of health risk and the evidence needed to plan adaptation. It connects environmental exposures, disease surveillance, health equity and health service continuity rather than treating them as separate subjects.

You can use the assessment templates to identify priority risks, define vulnerable populations and select adaptation measures. The final action plan provides a structured basis for discussions with service leaders, partners and budget holders.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. Time is divided between instructor input, case analysis, group work, scenario planning and development of an individual application plan.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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