Past Events

CHAMP- Awareness Program on Health Effects of Air pollution &

Climate – Smart Healthcare at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital

On March 22, 2023, CCDC and HELP, in collaboration with Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, organized an awareness session on the Health Effects of Air Pollution & Climate-smart Healthcare. The event aimed to highlight the role doctors and healthcare professionals can play in the fight against climate change and to encourage them to step up as educators and communicators for the health effects of air pollution & advocates for clean and renewable energy.

The event began with welcome address by Dr. Karan Thakur, Vice President and Sustainability Lead at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, followed by the Keynote talk by Dr. Poornima Prabhakaran (Director, Centre for Environmental Health, Public Health Foundation of India) on Climate-Smart Healthcare. The session proceeded with Dr. Rajesh Chawla, Senior Consultant, Respiratory Medicine, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, discussing the health impacts of air pollution. Mr. Masroor Azam, Program Coordinator, Health and Environment Leadership Platform, then briefed about the Health and Environment Leadership Platform (HELP) & Climate and Health Air Monitoring Program (CHAMP). The project aims at building awareness around air pollution and its impact on health and promoting climate-smart healthcare practices.

Overall, the awareness session provided an excellent opportunity to highlight the impact of air pollution and climate change on health and the critical role of healthcare professionals in tackling these challenges. The event was attended by more than 200 healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals

Leadership Conclave on Healthcare Sustainability and Climate Action

On 7th December 2022, we organized the Leadership Conclave on Healthcare Sustainability and Climate Action at Radisson Blu Plaza, New Delhi. The objective of the conclave was to bring the health sector leadership in India up to speed with the recent development in healthcare sustainability & Climate Action and to deliberate on new and effective strategies to engage the members of the Health and Environment Leadership Platform. The participants of the conclave were CEO’s of hospitals, Medical Directors, healthcare administrators, nursing group representatives and environment experts. The event marked a mixed representation of healthcare leadership and the people working at implementation in different levels of healthcare.

The event started with a context setting on Climate-Smart Healthcare by Dr Poornima Prabhakarn, who gave detailed insight into how the healthcare sector is impacted by the climate crisis, emphasizing on the need for building resilience in the face of extreme climatic events. She also touched upon the mitigation measure the health sector must take, the need, and pathways for the health sector’s decarbonization.

Followed by her talk, the participants engaged in breakout discussions on challenges and opportunities around the issue of climate change and environmental sustainability. The idea of listening to the health sector leaders about the challenges and opportunities they face while adopting/implementing sustainability initiatives was central to the event.

While committing to do their bit of climate action, the participants also pledged to protect the environment and public health to ensure a thriving and healthy society for all.

Health and Climate Network Briefings

The Health and Climate Network (HCN), established and hosted by the Welcome Trust in 2020 has developed four briefs that highlight the evidence on how current food, energy, transport and health systems are contributing to the climate crisis and impacting people’s health, but also how they can be part of the solution. As one of the organisations supporting the briefings, Public Health Foundation of India organized a series of events to facilitate a dialogue on the relevance for India of this emerging evidence-on the connections between climate and human health (with a focus on food, energy, transport and health systems). The aim of the series is to deepen strategic cross-sectoral conversations among Indian stakeholders from related sectors to deliberate the suggested evidence-informed actions that can be taken jointly to address the climate crisis and poor health outcomes in the country.

The National Stakeholder Meeting – the final session in this series in August 2022  brought together health and non-health actors in India for joint deliberations and action in specific sectors, including energy, transport and nutrition. This concluding session focused on discussing the relevance of the recommendations from all four HCN briefings for the Indian context and how India can move towards serving as an exemplar for other developing countries.

CHAMP- Air pollution awareness training programme at St. Stephen’s Hospital

On 14th June 2022, Centre for Chronic Disease Control and the Health and Environment Leadership Platform organised a day long Air Pollution Awareness Campaign in collaboration with St Stephen’s Hospital, New Delhi. The event also marked the celebration of World Environment Day at the hospital. The program started at 8:30 in the morning with the display of posters on air pollution and health effects and various other posters made by nurses on the theme of world environment day. A skit on environmental issues was organised by nursing students in the OPD area of the hospital highlighting the role individuals and professionals can play in protecting the environment. Patients visiting the hospital were also engaged in the discussion on the issue of air pollution and health effects, they were encouraged to look at the posters and write about their understanding of air pollution on a white board.

Post lunch a more focused event for healthcare professionals was organised at the conference hall of the hospital. Dr Poornima Prabhakaran, Deputy Director at the Centre for Environmental Health, Public Health Foundation of India, Senior Scientist at the Centre for Chronic Disease Control talked in detail about the climate crisis, its impact on health and the healthcare sector. She also highlighted the role the healthcare sector must play in curbing climate change. 

Training Series for Nursing Community

HELP in collaboration with the Associatin of Nurse Executives (India) is organising a training series on the topic of Climate Change and Human Health to sensitise the nursing community and enable them to take climate action. In this series, we organized the first training session on Climate Change and Health on 10th February 2022. The second session on air pollution and its health impacts was organised on 5th July 2022. 

Links to recordings

CHAMP- Air Pollution and Health Effects Awareness Building Program at Bhagat Chandra Hospital

Under our CHAMP program we organized an awareness building program on Air Pollution and Health Effects at Bhagat Chandra Hospital, New Delhi on 14th March 2022. The event highlighted the role doctors and healthcare professionals can play in communicating about air pollution and health effects to their patients and community. Among the participants were the nurses, doctors, allied health professionals and representatives of social groups. The event was also marked by the presence of news media representatives.

International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies Event

7th September 2021 to mark the international day of clean air for blue skies. On this day we organised a webinar titled “Addressing Air Pollution and Health Effects: Role of Health Sector in Communication and Awareness”. Top experts from across medical streams and communications joined us as speakers to highlight the health effects of air pollution and to emphasize on ways to reduce air pollution and its ill effects. A series of posters on health effects of air pollution, aimed at improving public awareness was also released during the webinar (see Resources tab for the posters)

National Health Conclave 2019

The Centre for Environmental Health (CEH), a Centre of Excellence within the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI) organised a conclave on 23rd March 2019, dedicated to the health impacts of climate change in India and appropriate risk mitigation and adaptation strategies, with specific focus on the health sector. The conclave brought together a number of stakeholders including government, research institutions, academia, industry, community and international agencies on one platform to find a lasting solution to the ill impacts of climate change. A white paper was developed as a result of the conclave which summarizes the available evidence on these inter linkages between climate change, air pollution and its associated Health impacts and the critical role played by the health sector as a contributor as well as a first responder to climate change.