Scientific clues on global food (in)security and climate change relationship as drivers of health

Abstract Issue Food insecurity is in close relationship with the determinants of health. Global crisis including climate change (CC), natural disasters, poverty can deepen the burden, and all are linked with the economic, social, commercial, structural determinants of health. Defining such connections may help in proposing practical solutions. Description of the problem COVID-19 pandemic made the food security (FS) problem more visible. Food security considers basically the affordability, availability, and the quality of food. Food insecurity (FiS), violation of the right to healthy food, influences disease patterns and causes communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Globally, 71% of deaths are attributed to NCDs. Analyzing the relationship between FiS and other determinants of health like CC may be helpful for sustainable solutions in such a world where we are talking on “our planet, our health” motto. Example given in this study is the relationship between the country values/rankings of the “Global Food Security Index (GFSI)” and the “Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI)”. GFSI defines the FS situation and CCPI defines countries’ response to CC. Results Countries’ CCPI and GFSI values do not show a linear relationship. For example, Norway, as a country at the top of the Human Development Index (HDI) ranking list has both high CCPI and GFSI values. On the other hand, although USA and Canada have low CCPI, both have good GFSI values. Sub dimensions of the indicators may also vary across countries. Crisis like COVID-19, conflicts, poverty emphasize the need on improving the indicators in a transdisciplinary approach. Lessons Investigating indicators taking the determinants of health into account is helpful. However, different characteristics of the countries make it difficult to propose a standard approach to overcome the problems. Developing “new” indicators with transdisciplinary work might be useful in this sense. Key messages Food (in)security and climate change have “complex” interactions. Transdisciplinary approach may facilitate proposing realistic solutions.


Background:
Significant crop residue burning not only negatively affects local communities but is becoming an important public health issue for global climate change mitigation efforts. This practice is linked with air quality impairment, water contamination, soil degradation, fauna destruction. Chronic exposure to a high level of air pollution may cause permanent health injuries such as the development of lung diseases. The intentional burning of crop residues is a well-known practice across Romania even it is restricted by law.

Methods:
We propose a generic software model capable of detecting burned areas based on a time series of multi-spectral optical images together with a multi-step algorithm that uses a pretrained Gaussian Naive-Bayes classifier to map burned crop fields, named BCMA (Burned Crop Mapping Algorithm), using Copernicus Sentinel-2 acquisitions. BCMA can be trained and extended to recognize other user-defined burned areas and it can be used to produce burned crop fields maps at a global scale in near-real-time at high resolution. We focused on two restrained geographical areas where burned areas were signalized in local press as massive burning vegetation events.

Results:
We provide burned area maps generated with an implementation of BCMA over two sites in Romania: Ostroveni -Dolj county and Domogled -Mehedinti county, based on acquisitions from July 2020.

Conclusions:
This model provides a fast and reliable tool for detection of burned areas regardless of the landscape and vegetation that could help stakeholders to react and make a proper intervention. Our study highlights the meaningful implications of using this tool to track crop fields burning and to organize large scale awareness campaigns around sustainable crop residues management with positive impact on environment, human health, and agriculture. Further government agencies' positions regarding using satellite monitoring of burning vegetables might be crucial.

Key messages:
Satellite imagery is a valuable source of information for environment monitoring. More strategies are need to bring health and environment sustainability to the center of the climate change and to deliver information to the policy makers.
Abstract citation ID: ckac130.073 Scientific clues on global food (in)security and climate change relationship as drivers of health Dilek Aslan Crisis like COVID-19, conflicts, poverty emphasize the need The citizen' awareness about environmental health risks has been identified as an important determinant of citizens' choices for the adoption of pro-environmental behaviors, but for its study simple measures to be applied in population studies are still lacking. The Environmental Health Literacy (EHL), is a recent sub-cathegory of health literacy, including functional, critical and interactive dimensions, that can be applied in surveys on environmental health risk perception and behaviors. The aim of our study was to elaborate and validate an EHL Index (ELHI) using data from a large multicenter survey carried out among 4778 students of different disciplines in 15 Italian Universities, with a self-administered anonymous questionnaire investigating risk perceptions, attitudes and behaviors towards environmental health risks and including a simple Functional Health Literacy test (FHL). From the original questionnaire of 56 items three sets of questions were selected to represent the three dimensions of health literacy (Functional, Critical or Interactive) and their outcomes were compared with the answers about FHL test and pro-environmental behaviors. The Principal Component Analysis was used to select the most representative questions that were then grouped in the EHLI. The index was significantly associated with both FHL test and behaviors questions. The ROC curve indicated a satisfying accuracy and was used to identify the best cut-off for ELHI. In conclusion the constructed ELHI can be considered reliable and useful for further population surveys in similar target people to plan communication interventions about environmental health risks and their prevention through individual choices.
The increase in heavy rainfall in recent years shows the need to consider disaster preparedness also for persons in need of assistance and care who are cared for at home or in old people's and nursing homes. Evacuation concepts in the event of a heavy rainfall event lasting several days with simultaneous power failure are hardly available for the vulnerable group so far. As part of the LifeGRID project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the question is being investigated as to what regional challenges and requirements arise in the event of flooding and a prolonged power blackout in the Wesermarsch district. In addition, the question will be addressed as to how the current care situation of patients referred to electricity presents itself in such a situation. Within the framework of a qualitative design, expert interviews were conducted with care service managers in winter 2022. The four guided interviews were transcribed and their content analysed.
In coping with the assumed catastrophic events, the interviewees see problem areas in the organisation, communication, form of care and target group, in addition to the regional characteristics. It became clear that there are not only unanswered questions regarding responsibilities in the event of a crisis, but also that the diversity of forms of care (e.g. private households) poses a particular challenge. The interviewees do not see any viable alternatives to secure communication in the event of a power failure and also see that respiratory patients, for example, have a special need for care (e.g. due to the limited battery life of the respiratory equipment). The results also show that the nursing experts have different views on how they should prepare for such a scenario. These range from passivity to proactivity. A clear need for action becomes visible for cooperation and networking of the relevant actors, promotion of disaster literacy as well as the necessity to adapt the training curricula.

Key messages:
Climate change is exacerbating the demands for concepts that sustainably contribute to increasing disaster literacy. The results of the study underline this. Patients receiving outpatient care and residents of nursing homes for the elderly who depend on a continuous power supply have not yet been the focus of disaster management.