17 May 2009: The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a report on climate change and health research during the meeting of Commonwealth Health Ministers, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland.

The report was drafted in response to a World Health Assembly resolution on climate change and health adopted by the 193 member States of WHO in May 2008. The resolution called on, inter alia, the WHO to work with external partners to support applied research in this field, from assessment of climatic risks to health, to estimating the health benefits of mitigation measures and the costs of adaptation.
In response to this request, WHO coordinated a global e-consultation and meeting of over 70 leading researchers, practitioners, representatives of the UN and other agencies, and donors. The resulting report, titled “Protecting Health from Climate Change: Global research priorities,” formulates a series of recommendations on the most important directions for future work in this field, and how this should be integrated with related areas of public health and climate research. [The Report]