18 July 2016

Assembled by UNU-IIGH, six papers underline the value of applying science, technology to reduce disaster-related health risks; productivity in many jobs seen falling by up to 40 percent by 2050 due to heat stress; experts convene at UN forum in Malaysia

The rising price — in both money and health — of extreme weather events amid rapid urbanisation, and the corresponding value of applying science and technology to reduce the risks, is underscored in six new research papers formally launched at a UN event today.

Assembled by UN University’s Malaysia-based International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH), the papers are published in a special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health.

And they help inform a special Forum on Advancing Science and Technology in the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, hosted in Kuala Lumpur July 19 by UNU-IIGH and the UN Development Programme.

The papers include a warning about large productivity losses due to heat stress, estimating that in South-East Asia alone “as much as 15% to 20% of annual work hours may already be lost in heat-exposed jobs,” a figure that may double by 2050 as the planet continues warming.

According to author Tord Kjellstrom of the Health and Environment International Trust, New Zealand: “Current climate conditions in tropical and subtropical parts of the world are already so hot during the hot seasons that occupational health effects occur and work capacity for many people is affected.”

Dr. Kjellstrom’s paper cites estimated GDP losses due to heat stress for 43 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Russia, Saint Lucia, Samoa, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu and Vietnam (see tables at http://bit.ly/29BL0Dn).

The situation in Malaysia is typical of the South-East Asian countries: As work slows or stops to avoid dangerous heat stress, the country’s Gross Domestic Product will decline by an estimated 5.9% (value: US $95 billion) by 2030, more than double the estimated 2.8% GDP lost to heat stress in 2010.

According to latest estimates, the global economic cost of reduced productivity may be more than US $2 trillion by 2030. The most susceptible jobs include the lowest paid — heavy labour and low-skill agricultural and manufacturing.

In 2030, in both India and China, the GDP losses could total $450 billion, although mitigation may be made possible by a major shift in working hours, among other measures employers will need to take to reduce losses.

This problem is already placing major strain on, for example, electricity infrastructure, Dr. Kiellstrom notes. The additional energy needed for a single city the size of Bangkok for each 1°C increase of average ambient temperature can be as much as 2000 MW, roughly the output of a major power plant.

“It is very important to develop and apply adaptation measures now to protect people from the disasters that current climate and slowing changing climate brings,” says Dr. Kjellstrom. “However, adaptation is only half an answer — we must also take decisive action now to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases. Failure will cause the frequency and intensity of disasters to worsen dramatically beyond 2050, and the situation at the end of this century will be especially alarming for the world’s poorest people.”

Heat stress is one of several direct and growing impacts on human health due to a warming planet, understanding all of which “is critical in planning for mitigation and adaptation plans,” the authors say.

According to the papers:

• Disastrously heavy rains can expand insect breeding sites, drive rodents from their burrows, and contaminate freshwater resources, leading to the spread of disease and compromising safe drinking water supplies.
• Warmer temperatures often promote the spread of mosquito-borne parasitic and viral diseases by shifting the vectors’ geographic range and shortening the pathogen incubation period.
• Climate change can worsen air quality by triggering fires and dust storms and promoting certain chemical reactions causing respiratory illness and other health problems.
• In extreme disasters, harm is often amplified by the destruction of medical facilities and disruption of health services
• Central and south China can anticipate the greatest number of casualties and highest economic losses from extreme weather events in the Asia Pacific region — the world’s most disaster-prone region — and a more integrated, multidisciplinary approach is needed to upgrade the nation’s emergency response system for natural disasters.
• From 1980 to 2012, roughly 2.1 million people worldwide died as a direct result of nearly 21,000 natural catastrophes such as floods, mudslides, extreme heat, drought, high winds or fires. The cost of those disasters exceeded $4 trillion (US) — a loss comparable to the current annual GDP of Germany.
• In Asia Pacific 1.2 billion people have been affected by 1,215 disasters since the millennium. Some 92% of human exposure to floods occurs in Asia Pacific, along with 91% of exposure to cyclones and two-thirds of all exposure to landslides. Between 1970 and 2011, two million people in the region — 75% of the world total — were killed by disasters.
• From 1993 to 2012, the Philippines experienced the highest number of extreme weather events (311), Thailand experienced the greatest financial loss (US$ 5.4 billion) and Myanmar experienced the highest death rate (13.5 deaths per 100,000 people).
• In just 40 years, from 1970 to 2010, the regional population exposed to flooding risk more than doubled from about 30 million to 64 million while those in cyclone-prone areas rose from roughly 72 to 121 million.
• Cities cover 2% of world land cover, generate 60 to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions and half of all waste, and are expanding at a rate of 1 million people per week. In a single generation — from 2000 to 2030 –urban land extents are expected to have tripled.

The authors underline that fast-rising numbers of people are being exposed to the impacts of climate change, with much of the increase occurring in cities in flood-prone coastal areas or on hills susceptible to mudslides or landslides. Especially vulnerable are people living in poverty, including about one billion in slums.

Cities — concentrated sources of energy consumption, heat and pollution, covered in surfaces that absorb warmth — create local heat islands and impair air quality, both threats to health.

And rising demand for cooling contributes to warming the world. Air conditioners not only pump heat out directly, the electricity required is typically produced by burning fossil fuels, adding to atmospheric greenhouse gases. As well, people acclimatized to air conditioning become less heat tolerant, further increasing demand for cooling.

On the other hand, better urban planning presents “tremendous opportunity” to mitigate the health impacts of more extreme weather events.

Urban planners, the authors say, can help by designing cities “in ways that enhance health, sustainability, and resilience all at once,” incorporating better building design, facilitating a shift to renewable energy, and fostering the protection and expansion of tree cover, wetlands and other carbon sinks, for example.

To mitigate the health impacts of longer, more severe extreme weather events, the authors stress the need to replace piecemeal reactive responses with integrated, multi-disciplinary planning approaches.

Beyond better preparation and warning systems to improve disaster response, recommended steps include enhancing drainage to reduce flood risks and strengthening health care, especially in poor areas.

In an introduction to the six paper collection, UNU-IIGH Research Fellows Jamal Hisham Hashim and José Siri write that humanity faces “substantial health risks from the degradation of the natural life support systems which are critical for human survival. It has become increasingly apparent that actions to mitigate environmental change have powerful co-benefits for health.”

Comments:

“It is not clear yet whether considerations of health and sustainability will overrule the press of economic progress in coming decades, and ethical considerations surrounding the right to development are thorny indeed. What is clear is that tremendous opportunities exist to design cities in ways that enhance health, sustainability, and resilience all at once. Decisions made today will have a profound impact on health around the world for many decades to come. We hope these papers help improve understanding of the complex relationship between global environmental change and health, of the threat climate change poses to hard-won advances in human health worldwide, and of policy options available to mitigate these risks.”

Anthony Capon, Director, UNU-IIGH

“The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) underlines the increasing importance of science-based decision-making. Public health and disaster risk reduction needs the concerted approach of scientists, policy makers, civil society, the private sector, media and other stakeholders. It is now time to develop “Words into Action” for implementation of the SFDRR.”

Michelle Gyles-McDonnough, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam

“Disasters have killed more than 1.3 million people and cost over US$2 trillion during the last two decades. The only way to protect development gains from disasters and to eradicate poverty is to integrate disaster risk reduction into development and to make all development risk-informed. UNDP will continue to provide support for getting DRR on the political agenda as a cross-cutting development priority, and facilitating the translation of DRR policy frameworks into action at the local level for empowered lives and resilient nations.”

Rajib Shaw, Executive Director, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Programme, China

“This excellent series of peer review papers help to focus attention on the impact of disasters and their health consequences, particularly in South East Asia. The papers summarise the need for emphasis on public health impact measurements as well as stressing the importance of enhanced scientific and technical work on disaster risk reduction. This very welcome series demonstrates that only by documenting the effects of disasters can evidence be provided to support the availability and application of science and technology to inform decision-making during difficult times.”

Virginia Murray, Global Disaster Risk Reduction Expert, Public Health England, and vice-chair, Scientific and Technical Advisory Group, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)

“People know intuitively that “react and cure” is a far more expensive strategy than “anticipate and prevent.” The experts behind these insightful papers, by detailing the high price of inaction in terms of both our finances and our health, greatly strengthen the case for taking defensive steps against disaster risks — and the sooner the better.”

Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, Malaysia

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The six papers, published by the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health

• Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and Human Health Implications in the Asia Pacific Region, by Jamal Hisham Hashim and Zailina Hashim
• Urbanization, Extreme Events, and Health: The Case for Systems Approaches in Mitigation, Management, and Response, by José G. Siri, Barry Newell, Katrina Proust, and Anthony Capon
• Impact of Climate Conditions on Occupational Health and Related Economic Losses: A New Feature of Global and Urban Health in the Context of Climate Change, by Tord Kjellstrom
• Impact of Climate Change on Air Quality and Public Health in Urban Areas, by Noor Artika Hassan, Zailina Hashim, and Jamal Hisham Hashim
• Review of Climate Change and Water-Related Diseases in Cambodia and Findings From Stakeholder Knowledge Assessments, by Lachlan J. McIver, Vibol S. Chan, Kathyrn J. Bowen, Steven N. Iddings, Kol Hero and Piseth P. Raingsey
• Emergency Response to and Preparedness for Extreme Weather Events and Environmental Changes in China, by Li Wang, Yongfeng Liao, Linsheng Yang, Hairong Li, Bixiong Ye, and Wuyi Wang

Background

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 was agreed at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan in March 2015 and endorsed by the UN General Assembly in June 2015.

The goal of the Sendai Framework is to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risk through the implementation of integrated and inclusive economic, structural, legal, social, health, cultural, educational, environmental, technological, political and institutional measures that prevent and reduce hazard exposure and vulnerability to disaster, increase preparedness for response and recovery, and thus strengthen resilience.

The outcome expected by 2030 is a substantial reduction in disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental aspects of persons, private sector, communities and countries.

A key feature of the Sendai Framework is the shift of focus from managing ‘disasters’ to managing ‘risks’. Such a shift requires a better understanding of risk in all its dimensions of hazards, exposure and vulnerability.

The role of science and technology in providing the evidence and knowledge on risk features heavily in the Sendai Framework.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Science and Technology Conference, held 27-29 January 2016 in Geneva, produced the Science and Technology Roadmap to Support the Implementation of the Sendai Framework.

The UNU and UNDP Joint Public Forum and High Level Roundtable on Advancing Science and Technology in the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 has the following goals:

• Raise awareness of the value of science, technology and innovation (STI) for disaster risk reduction
• Engage key stakeholders in options to build STI capacity in this field, and
• Identify strategic next steps.

It takes place in Kuala Lumpur Tuesday, 19 July, 9 a.m. to noon (full details: http://bit.ly/29BK7dW).

About UN University

Established in 1973, United Nations University (UNU) is a global think tank and postgraduate teaching organization headquartered in Japan. The mission of the UN University is to contribute, through collaborative research and education, to efforts to resolve the pressing global problems of human development, welfare and survival that are the concern of the United Nations, its Peoples and Member States.

In carrying out this mission, UN University works with leading universities and research institutes in UN Member States, functioning as a bridge between the international academic community and the United Nations system. Through postgraduate teaching activities, UNU contributes to capacity building, particularly in developing countries.

About UNU-IIGH

The UNU International Institute for Global Health was founded in 2007 with a US$ 40 million endowment from the Malaysian Government. Based in Kuala Lumpur, the mission of UNU-IIGH is to build knowledge and capacity for decision-making by the UN system about global health issues.

As part of the International Council for Science (ICSU), UNU-IIGH is a co-sponsor of a 10-year global interdisciplinary science program on Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban Environment – A Systems Analysis Approaches.

UNU-IIGH contributions include capacity building in systems methods for population health research; development and evaluation of metrics for healthy urban development, particularly those relevant to low and middle income countries; and leadership training for city planners, elected officials, public health workers and others.

About UNDP

UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in more than 170 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations.

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News release in full, click here

Example coverage:

• Newswires / syndicates

Reuters, UK, Too hot to work: global warming to cost $2 trillion in lost productivity, click here

Washington Post, USA, As the world grows hotter, some workers are becoming less productive, click here

Bloomberg News, USA, Soaring Temperatures Will Make It Too Hot to Work, UN Warns, click here

The Independent, UK, Global warming set to cost the world economy £1.5 trillion by 2030 as it becomes too hot to work, click here

EuropaPress, Spain, Investigadores detallan los riesgos crecientes para salud de los desastres naturales, click here

RAI Novosty, Russia, ООН посчитала, во сколько мировой экономике обойдется глобальное потепление, click here

PAP, Poland, ONZ ostrzega: Wzrost temperatury doprowadzi do skrócenia czasu pracy, click here

• News sites

Le Figaro, France, via Yahoo News, La hausse des températures pourraient coûter 2 trillions de dollars à l’économie d’ici 2030, click here

Les Echos, France, Selon un rapport de l’ONU, la hausse des températures en raison du changement climatique pourrait coûter des points de PIB et des billions de dollars d’ici à 2030, click here

BFM Business, France, L’économie mondiale victime du réchauffement climatique, click here

Sina, China, 全球变暖每年将夺走13万亿元财富, click here

De Morgen, Belgium, Toenemende temperaturen doen wereldeconomie serieus zweten, click here

Business Green, UK, Heat stress is already impacting the bottom line – and it’s only going to get worse, click here

Climate News Network, UK, Climate change’s costs are still escalating, click here

Clean Malaysia, Climate Change will Cost us … a Lot, click here

Free Malaysia Today, Malaysia, Productivity to drop in Asia Pacific due to heat stress, click here

Mic, United States, As Republicans Deny Climate Change, the U.N. Says it Could Cost the World $2 Trillion, click here

RP, Poland, Cena globalnego ocieplenia: 2 biliony dolarów w ciągu najbliższych, click here

Taloussanomat, Finland, Kylmyyttä Pohjolaan, tukalaa Aasiaan – tuoko muutos säissä lisää lepoaikaa?, click here

iDNES, Czech Republic, Kvůli oteplování se bude méně pracovat. Ekonomiky zpomalí, varuje OSN, click here

Экспресс газета, Russia, Глобальное потепление может серьёзно ударить по мировой экономике, click here

Klimaretter, Germany, Weniger Arbeitstage durch Erderwärmung, click here

Rappler, USA, Hotter climate causing lower worker productivity – study, click here

Rinnovabili, Italy, Il riscaldamento globale fa sudare anche l’economia, click here

Privátbankár, Hungary, Olyan hőség lesz, amiben már dolgozni sem lehet – óriási károkat okoz majd, click here

Kommersant, Russia, Мировую экономику ожидает солнечный удар, click here

Okezone, Indonesia, Pemanasan Global Akan Membuat Perekonomian Asia Menderita, click here

XãLuận, Vietnam, GDP, năng suất lao động Việt Nam bị ảnh hưởng nặng bởi nắng nóng, click herehttp://www.xaluan.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1539110

iAgua, Spain, ¿Qué impactos tienen los desastres naturales en la salud?, click here

Full coverage summary, click here

UNU International Institute for Global Health, Kuala Lumpur

9 Dec. 2014

‘Science of Systems’ comes of age in pioneering interdisciplinary programme; Secretariat opens in China

In brief:

In China, international experts in health, environmental, behavioural and social sciences launch a pioneering programme to address rising health problems in cities through better urban planning.

Led by the International Council for Science (ICSU), and co-sponsored by the United Nations University and the InterAcademy Medical Panel, the new global Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme will inform city planning, policies and design with science-based strategies and tactics to improve the health of billions of people living in fast-growing urban areas.

It will also identify and help manage the unintended health consequences of urban policy and the connections between cities and planetary change.

People in swelling urban environments worldwide face elevated health risks in several major areas:

* Chronic non-communicable diseases resulting from risk factors associated with urban living, such as physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, tobacco and other drug use. These include cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and Type 2 diabetes, all now at epidemic proportions worldwide
* Infectious diseases (with urbanisation cited as a factor in West Africa’s recent Ebola outbreak)
* Health effects of pollution including cancers and heart and lung diseases
* Mental disorders potentially arising from stress, social isolation and other factors
* Heat stress and natural hazard risks due to climate change
* Vehicle collisions, violence, crime, workplace accidents

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15-Jun-2014

Study in Uganda shows under-18s most vulnerable to cholera, typhoid, acute diarrhea, other water-related health risks rising with climate change

United Nations University will help pioneer a fresh trail in global health research, exploring links between the planet’s health and human health at an institute in Kuala Lumpur generously supported by Malaysia.

As the world’s post-2015 development agenda takes shape, including new sustainable development goals (SDGs), the UNU International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) has been assigned a new mandate focused on several key issues of universal concern, including:

• Health impacts of biodiversity loss and climate change. The work will include identifying potential adaptation strategies and options to mitigate harm
• Physical and mental health hazards posed by the world’s rapid ongoing urbanization and how to optimize city development for better health
• Health problems due to trans-boundary pollution, including fossil fuel-related air pollution causing millions of premature deaths, especially in Asia.The recent report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscored the threat climate change poses to Earth’s life-support systems, including:
• Changes in infectious disease patterns, and the mental health consequences of trauma, loss, and displacement from resource conflict or floods and drought due to extreme weather events and the loss of habitable (especially coastal) land
• Declines in regional food yields
• Freshwater shortages

Endowed by Malaysia with $40 million, UNU-IIGH funding is supplemented by support from sources worldwide.

“Our goals include advancing a detailed understanding of the specific risks ahead and underlining for the public and policy-makers alike the wealth of positive health-related co-benefits available from action on climate change,” says UNU-IIGH Director Anthony Capon.

For example, a study co-authored by UNU-IIGH and published in March (at http://bit.ly/1hHmxOp) identified Uganda’s under-18 population as the most vulnerable of all age groups to water-related health risks rising with climate variability — including cholera, typhoid, acute diarrhea, and dysentery.

The study warns that changes in climate worldwide and the variability of intensive rainfall patterns and flash flooding threaten more pandemics of such waterborne diseases and exacerbation of the incidence of infections, such as those borne by ticks.

Risks, opportunities in urbanization

Similarly, Dr. Capon adds, the rapid, ongoing urbanization of the world presents both risks and opportunities for human and environmental health.

“Cities concentrate people and economic activity and, therefore, they also concentrate resource consumption and waste production. This means that the way cities work can affect the health of people and planetary systems.”

He adds: “During the next 20 to 30 years, the UN estimates 2 to 3 billion will be added to the population of the world’s urban areas, more than 1 million people every week. Most of this population growth will be in medium-sized cities in low- and middle-income countries. This global urban transition offers an unparalleled opportunity to improve urban development and thereby protect the future health of people and ecosystems.”

“It’s imperative that we integrate our thinking about the health of people and our planetary systems and trends in order to clearly anticipate and mitigate problems ahead,” says Prof. Tan Sri Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Advisor to Malaysia’s Prime Minister, co-chair of MIGHT, and Chair of a major new UN body on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES.net).

“Though advancing slowly, threats to human health posed by such phenomena as climate change, biodiversity loss and haphazard urbanization are profound, and achieving and acting with broader perspective is fundamental. Helping the world create new insights into and address these concerns is a critical new assignment for UNU-IIGH and Malaysia is proud to host and support this work.”

Says Malaysian Minister of Education II Dato’ Seri Idris Jusoh: “UNU-IIGH is an important example of Malaysia’s increasing contributions to global development in low- and middle-income countries. As well as UNU-IIGH, we are pleased to host UN University’s finance and human resources centre here in Kuala Lumpur.”

Adds the Minister: “With the increasing number of dengue cases occurring around Malaysia and outbreaks such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome — Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) and avian influenza, as well as the emerging crisis of non-communicable diseases (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, tobacco epidemic) and health issues related to rapid urbanization and global environmental change, it is critical that Malaysians avail ourselves of the expertise of UNU-IIGH, which has been working to further so many important global health initiatives around the world.”

Solid research foundation

A national of Australia and New Zealand, Dr. Capon notes that the foundation for meeting UNU-IIGH’s new planetary and human health-focused assignment rests on solid research capabilities and results established in the institute’s first seven years.

Among several other IIGH contributions to peer-reviewed health science to date:

• Factors underpinning water availability in a developing country: A 2012 study documents the relationship of several variables on water availability and management in Uganda — a matter of growing concern throughout the developing world.
• Child intelligence and nutrition: A 2013 study in Iran involving almost 500 children identifies child nutritional and iodine deficiency as “the most important factors related to child’s intelligence,” and urges food fortification, especially iodization of salt, a program for which was halted by war
• Arsenic-contaminated groundwater in Cambodia: Studies in 2013 (http://bit.ly/1hHmHVR, and http://bit.ly/1kQVwXO) show that, of 616 individuals from three provinces in Cambodia’s Mekong River basin, on average one in six people — and in one province one in three — had high levels of arsenic in their bodies, attributed to both contaminated wells and food, specifically contaminated fish and cattle. Authors add that “the association between arsenicosis and the use of Chinese traditional medicine also needs further investigation.”
• Mercury and DDT in Cambodian diets: Other studies in Cambodia (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653513003159 andhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389411008375) document dangerously high levels of mercury ingested via fish and elevated cancer risks from DDT in fish and vegetables.
• Improving health care in developing world through e-learning: A 2013 study underscores the importance of e-learning strategies to keep health care personnel abreast of technological developments, and how UNU-IIGH is contributing to that end.
• Lung problems in paint factories: A 2013 study documents lung problems among paint factory workers while a 2009 study looks at the effect of naphtha exposure on the lungs of workers in Malaysian tire factories.
• Health and auto pollution in Amman, Jordan: A 2012 study, recommends limiting local traffic density after assessing the air quality impact of a 7% annual increase in the number of registered cars in the city over the previous decade, 32% of them old models.
• Medical ethics and cancer: A 2013 commentary, meanwhile, addresses the troubling question of how to balance the desire to prolong life for certain cancer patients in Malaysia when treatment leads to extremely painful side effects.
• Health risks and school children: A 2011 study captures the relationship between asthma in early teenaged students and exposure to allergens, moulds and mycotoxin in Malaysia schools, while a 2012 study looks at the relationship between low levels of lead in the bloodstream of young Malaysia pupils and their cognitive and physical development.and
• Improving life’s quality for blood disorder patients: A 2009 study investigates the blood disorder thalassaemia, which requires continuous transfusions and creates the side effect of iron-overload in the patient’s blood. There is an expensive remedy for the side effect, however, and the study measures the quality of life improvement of thalassaemia patients on desferrioxamine treatment.

Assisting developing countries

UN Under Secretary-General David Malone, Rector of UN University, notes that “a major focus of UNU-IIGH is on helping developing countries to enhance their capability to deal with threats to human health, and to facilitate innovation and the dissemination of information.”

Later this year, he adds, Dr. Zakri will become Chair of the UNU-IIGH Board of Advisors, succeeding the founding chair Dr. Abdallah Daar of Oman. Both men are members of the UN Secretary-General’s new 26-member Scientific Advisory Board.

Says Dr. Malone: “The Government of Malaysia is an exceptionally generous supporter of UN University. We are thankful also to all those who have steered this institute through its earliest stages of growth, especially my friend and colleague Dr. Daar and founding Director Tan Sri Dato’ Mohamed Salleh Mohamed Yasin of Malaysia. They have guided UNU-IIGH to a firm, valuable presence in the important arena of global health.”

As outgoing Advisory Board Chair, Professor Daar, based at the University of Toronto, adds his praise of the UNU-IIGH, noting the institute has recruited excellent research fellows and gradate students from many countries.

“The affiliation of UNU-IIGH with universities in Malaysia is one of its key strengths, as is the great support it receives from the national government,” says Dr. Daar. “It has delivered major, urgently needed public health training programs in developing countries like Yemen, and pioneered the development of free software and regional training programs for case-mix and health care information systems. It has also put environmental health on the regional agenda with its major studies in neighboring countries like Cambodia, examining the impact of environmental toxins such as arsenic in the water supply.”

Tony Capon and Zakri Abdul Hamid elaborate on an important dimension of UNU-IIGH’s new focus on human health and planetary change — how to address the rising epidemic of obese and overweight people — in an commentary at http://bit.ly/1kv8xlo.

About UN University

Established in 1973, United Nations University (UNU) is a global think tank and postgraduate teaching organization headquartered in Japan. The mission of the UN University is to contribute, through collaborative research and education, to efforts to resolve the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare that are the concern of the United Nations, its Peoples and Member States.

In carrying out this mission, the UN University works with leading universities and research institutes in UN Member States, functioning as a bridge between the international academic community and the United Nations system. Through postgraduate teaching activities, UNU contributes to capacity building, particularly in developing countries.

About UNU-IIGH

The UNU International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) was founded in 2007 with a US $40 million endowment from the Malaysian Government. Based in Kuala Lumpur, it is one of 13 UNU institutes and programs located in 12 countries.

The mission of the UNU-IIGH is to build knowledge and capacity for decision-making about global health issues.

UNU recently joined the International Council for Science (ICSU) as a co-sponsor of a new 10-year global interdisciplinary science program on Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban Environment – A Systems Analysis Approaches. The ICSU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (also based in Kuala Lumpur, at the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia) has already developed a regional implementation plan for this program and is supporting several research and capacity building initiatives in the region.

In coming years, this urban health programme will be rolled out progressively around the world and is expected to attract substantial research funding from foundations and other research funding agencies. UNU-IIGH contributions will include capacity building in systems methods for population health research; development and evaluation of metrics for healthy urban development, particularly those relevant to low and middle income countries; and leadership training for city planners, elected officials, public health workers and others.

Earlier this month, UNU-IIGH hosted its first intensive course on urbanization and health using systems approaches that attracted 31 participants from 18 countries across that Asia-Pacific and African regions, including Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal, Yemen, Morocco, Ghana, Togo, Cote D’Ivoire, Kenya and Uganda.

About the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology

MIGHT is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee under the purview of the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Built on the strength of public-private partnership with more than 100 members, both local and international, from industry, government and academia, MIGHT is dedicated to providing a platform for industry-government consensus building in the drive to advance high technology competency in Malaysia.

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