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Chapter 4 Adaptation Measures to Address Global Climate Change

The Role of Cross-Sector Collaboration in Public Health Climate
Change Adaptation

Against the backdrop of increasingly severe challenges posed by global climate change
to public health, single-sector actions have become insufficient to effectively address
complex and evolving health threats. Climate change adaptation in public health requires
multi-sectoral collaboration to enhance overall adaptive efficiency through resource integra-
tion and strategy optimization, thereby safeguarding population health.
(1) The Necessity of Multi-Sectoral Collaboration
The impacts of climate change on public health manifest across multiple dimensions,
ranging from health crises triggered by extreme weather events to adjustments in disease
transmission patterns caused by long-term climatic trends. This complexity necessitates a co-
ordinated multi-sectoral response. Public health departmentsWhile the public health depart-
ment plays a central role in disease surveillance, prevention, and treatment, its individual ca-
pacity proves insufficient to address the widespread impacts of climate change. For instance,
when responding to heatwave disasters, high temperatures not only directly threaten public
health but also trigger chain reactions across energy supply, transportation systems, and
food safety. The energy sector must ensure stable power supply to meet residents’ electric-
ity demand for heat prevention and cooling, preventing power shortages that could disable
air conditioning and other cooling equipment, thereby inducingmore heat-Related diseases.
The transportation department must ensure road accessibility to enable medical emergency
vehicles to reach patients in need promptly, while also guaranteeing the transportation of
daily necessities such as food to maintain stable market supply and prevent social panic and
potential health issues caused by material shortages. If departments operate in isolation, pub-
lic health authorities may struggle to effectively implement rescue and prevention measures
during heatwaves due to insufficient energy supply or transportation disruptions, significant-
ly increasing residents’ health risks. Specifically, when a heatwave strikes, if power supply
fails to meet demand, hospital cooling equipment cannot operate normally, compromising
medical environments and adversely affecting the treatment of critically ill patients. Trans-
portation delays would hinder the delivery of medicines, food, and other supplies, making it
difficult to sustain basic living conditions and medical security for residents in affected areas.
Another example is infectious disease control. Climate change alters the distribution
and activity patterns of vector organisms (e.g., mosquitoes,tickticks and others) expand their
distribution ranges and alter their reproductive cycles, thereby influencing disease trans-
mission. Public health authorities are responsible for disease surveillance and prevention
strategy formulation, but controlling infectious disease transmission at its source requires
collaboration with environmental departments. Environmental agencies can reduce vector
breeding grounds through ecological improvements such as sewage cleanup and wetland
restoration. Concurrently, agricultural departments should ensure rational use of pesticides
during farming processes, avoiding excessive application that could disrupt ecological bal-

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