Weather conditions and population level mortality in resource-poor settings – understanding the past before projecting the future

level mortality in resource-poor settings Á understanding the past before projecting the future T his supplement of Global Health Action shows how retrospective, longitudinal, population-based health data from several resource poor settings in Africa and Asia can enhance the understanding of the impact of the variability extremes of weather on mortality. This information is key to our understanding of the local impacts following from climate change, and to the development of adaptation strategies to mitigate such impacts. While the editors realize the strength of the empirical evidence generated, they also emphasize that this is merely a first step in the right direction 'a proof of principle' and that there are obvious needs to continue this work by widening and deepening the research efforts. Severe and sometimes devastating consequences are considered to be associated with future climate change, with the largest potential impacts occurring in areas with the least means to adapt. Impacts on health range from those related to malnutrition, fresh water scarcity, and changes in the range and transmission of many infectious diseases to those directly related to weather or climate extremes, such as those caused by tropical storms, floods or heat waves (1). Understanding future hazards and their health impacts is important for adaptation and mitigation policies. The former seeks to build climate change resilience into health systems; the latter brings the information on adverse health impacts into the climate policy debate as a further motivation to reduce net emissions (2). The current understanding of health impacts from climate and weather is much better in high-income countries, while there is a strong belief that the impacts will be much more severe in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Although this belief is likely to be true, it still relies on limited empirical evidence. At present there is a lack of studies on the current health impacts from climate and weather on the population health in LMICs, particularly in rural Africa and Asia (1, 3, 4). This gap has immediate consequences for the understanding of the future local impacts on public health in these regions. One important factor related to the scarce evidence is the limited knowledge of even the simplest demographic and health statistics, such as the number of people living in a defined geographical area, the number of people that are born or deceased each year and the actual cause of death. The INDEPTH network has collected high-quality standardized …