Mitigating climate changes on health in Burkina Faso

project summary

Due to climate changes, Burkina Faso (BF) has experienced a continual decrease in annual rainfall during the last decades causing food scarcity across the country. To mitigate this, the BF government has established agricultural production and growth centers (“agro-poles”) around existing dams. However, these centers impact on population health, as many water-related diseases (WRDs) are climate-sensitive. Moreover, the attractiveness of the agro-poles increases migration towards these centers, exacerbating more people to the risk of exposure to WRDs.
In order to ensure an acceptable balance between the need for intensive food production and control of WRDs, better understanding of the interactions between climate change and human pathogens in a man-made environment is needed. Furthermore, it is essential to explore factors that strengthen resilience of the population against climate sensitive WRDs following an artificial change.
This project will study the burden of climate sensitive WRDs such as malaria, dengue and schistosomiasis and factors affecting resilience of the population living in the agro-pole of Soum in Nanoro utilizing the HDSS platform. Using a mixed-method approach, we will study human population risk of/resilience to WRDs by exploring: (i) Risk and burden of WRDs, (ii) Socio-economic and cultural factors and (iii) Climatic and environmental parameters. Findings will support the development of a spatial-temporal model to predict the risks of WRDs and the impact of climate change in the agro-pole study site and beyond. Finally, the project will formulate recommendations for interventions to strengthen the population’s resilience to climate change involving community and health system actors. The project will build research capacity by technology transfer and training of 2 PhD students and 1 Postdoc and will furthermore secure that findings are disseminated/communicated to national and international stakeholders, as well as in high-ranking journals.