A recent review published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health highlights a significant gap in climate change adaptation policies: the neglect of children’s mental health and specific needs. Public health experts argue for the urgent integration of child-specific measures to address the heightened vulnerability of children to climate change.
Key Findings:
The analysis of 160 national adaptation policies revealed that while 72% included child-relevant measures, none specifically addressed children’s mental health. The predominant focus areas were education, nutrition, and community engagement.
Background:
Children are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to their dependency on caregivers, unique physiological characteristics, and prolonged exposure to environmental risks throughout their lives. Climate change impacts children’s health directly through extreme weather events and indirectly through factors like malnutrition, air pollution, and infectious diseases. Despite this, national policies often inadequately address these needs.
Early frameworks such as the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) and their successors, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Health National Adaptation Plans (HNAPs), aim to enhance climate resilience and health system adaptation. However, few have integrated child-specific considerations.
Study Overview:
The study assessed the extent to which child health is targeted in national adaptation policies, identifying predominant domains like education, community engagement, and nutrition, while highlighting the neglect of children’s mental health needs.
Researchers analyzed policies from 218 countries, focusing on those with substantial health-related content. Policies were sourced from Google, government websites, United Nations databases, and the European Climate Adaptation Platform, and were translated into English as necessary.
Using a thematic framework, researchers conducted a detailed analysis of HNAPs to identify child-specific adaptation measures and define relevant terminology. Three researchers coded the HNAPs, resolving disagreements through discussion. The codebook was then applied to the entire sample of policy documents.
Findings:
The study analyzed 160 national adaptation policies for child-specific health measures related to climate change. The documents included 22 HNAPs, 119 NAPs, and 19 NAPAs, primarily from middle-income and high-income countries, though low-income countries had the highest proportion of available adaptation policies.
The analysis identified 19 adaptation themes, 16 of which were child-specific, such as strengthening public health infrastructure, disaster preparedness, disease surveillance, environmental pollution control, and improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). Education and awareness-raising were the most common themes, mentioned by 63% of countries.
Coverage of child-specific measures varied significantly by country income status. Low and middle-income countries emphasized health infrastructure, equity, WASH, and poverty alleviation, while high-income countries focused on city planning and environmental monitoring.
Only five countries—Austria, Jordan, Samoa, Sudan, and Timor-Leste—included comprehensive child-specific adaptation measures across multiple domains. In contrast, 44 countries had no child-specific measures.
Conclusions:
The study highlights the urgent need for better integration of child-specific health measures in national adaptation policies to address climate change-related risks effectively. It reveals a significant gap, with only 3% of countries substantively addressing child-specific adaptation measures. Most countries either barely mentioned child-related measures or omitted them altogether.
Significant gaps identified include the lack of mental health programs for children, the perpetuation of harmful gender roles, and the failure to recognize children as active agents in climate adaptation.
The research calls for a systematic approach to integrating child health needs into all adaptation policies, advocating for comprehensive frameworks addressing various domains such as health systems, food security, and sanitation. It emphasizes the importance of involving children in policy planning, recognizing their diverse needs and roles, and ensuring their participation as co-creators in adaptation efforts.
Future research should focus on evaluating the implementation of these policies and exploring effective strategies to safeguard children’s health in the context of climate change. By addressing these gaps and promoting child-centered approaches, policies can better protect and empower children, contributing to a more resilient and equitable response to climate challenges.
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