Abstracts
The Response of the Montreal Public Health Board to Climate Change: Preventing Excess Morbidity and Mortality due to Extreme Summer Temperatures in Vulnerable Human Populations
Louis Drouin1, Norman King, Louis Jacques, Isabel Fortier, Lucie-Andrée Roy, Éric Litvak, Jo Anne Simard, and Tom Kosatsky
1Direction de santé publique de Montréal
drouin@santepub-mtl.qc.ca
The Montreal public health department has developed a multifaceted approach aimed at protecting the vulnerable population from the effects of heat waves. Firstly, we have mobilised environmental, health care, municipal and community resources and the media in order to ensure that our public health message reaches the vulnerable population and those that come into contact with them regularly.
We have also developed a surveillance system in collaboration with Montreal hospitals and emergency services in order to follow the evolution of health events during heat waves in order to determine whether emergency procedures such as opening air-conditioned shelters are necessary. Putting such a decision into effect requires the mobilisation of resources from several different organisations and must thus be based on credible data.
Many research projects are also being carried out with the collaboration of Montreal universities in order to better understand how mortality and morbidity vary with heat and possible synergistic factors, to evaluate whether our preventive health message is well understood by the population and put into action, to evaluate whether long-term care establishments are equipped to adequately protect vulnerable populations during heat waves and to identify urban heat islands.
Finally, we are working in collaboration with municipal authorities, community groups and private enterprise in the elaboration of a sustainable development plan for the Montreal area aimed at contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants and setting up of environmental measures to mitigate the effects of heat waves.
2005-04-05 |
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