NHMRC Special Initiative in Human Health and Environmental Change (SIHHEC)

Overview

Resilience to environmental change, emerging health threats and emergencies is one of NHMRC’s strategic priorities for action in 2018-2021. The Special Initiative in Human Health and Environmental Change (SIHHEC) aims to strengthen the Australian health system’s resilience, preparedness and responsiveness to changing environmental conditions and extreme weather events by establishing a collaborative, multidisciplinary network that builds national research capacity and capability in human health and environmental change, with a focus on one or more of the following areas: improving data sets and linkages needed to measure and evaluate the health-related impacts of environmental change at the individual and population level improving current understanding of the complex interactions between primary, secondary and tertiary health effects of environmental and climate change (such as direct injury, changes to vector-borne diseases and increased air pollution, and social and economic disruption, respectively), as well as the interaction of changing environmental conditions with health inequity and inequality assessing the health risks–both direct and indirect–and health system needs/costs associated with environmental change and extreme weather events, particularly over the long term, in vulnerable population groups and in affected regions, and/or stimulating innovative solutions, developing evidence-based mitigation and adaptation plans, and conducting health-focused cost-benefit analyses of strategies that address the health impacts of environmental change.