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Advancing Australia's role in climate change and health research

Abstract

A major Australian government report published 25 years ago called for urgent investment in research on the impacts of climate change on human health. Since that report's release, less than 0.1% of Australian health funding has been allocated to this area. As the world continues on a high emissions pathway, the health impacts from climate change are increasing in size and complexity. While Australia has established leadership roles in climate science and health research, it must now link these two strengths. Doing so would boost regional understanding of how climate change will affect health and what adaptation strategies are needed to reduce these threats. Such research would support better health planning and decision-making in partnership with other regional countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

D.G. conceived and wrote the initial draft manuscript, A.B. provided numerical analysis; A.P., A.B. and J.K. provided intellectual input and editorial responses in the initial version and the revision; P.D. and F.S. provided intellectual suggestions on the initial draft and revised comments on the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Donna Green.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Green, D., Pitman, A., Barnett, A. et al. Advancing Australia's role in climate change and health research. Nature Clim Change 7, 103–106 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3182

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