Our Work

Current projects

Our group is currently working on several projects:

  • Developing standards and models for describing the interaction of climate and health in global official statistics.  A three-year project with the Office of National Statistics of the National Health Service in the UK,  titled, "Developing standards and models for describing the interaction of climate and health in global official statistics."  Our group contributes expertise in evidence synthesis and knowledge translation to this initiative.  Principal contributors are Denise Thomson (Canada) and Richard Webster (Canada).
  • A map of existing priority-setting exercises in health and climate change, led by Miranda Cumpston (Australia)
  • A systematic review comparing the effective and safety of inhalers with and without propellant gases for asthma and COPD, led by Michael Loftus and Miranda Cumpston (Australia)
  • Establishing a mentoring program for early-career researchers interested in planetary health and evidence synthesis, led by Amin Sharifan (Germany)
  • Developing and validating a set of climate-health search filters.  This is led by Maria-Inti Metzendorf (Germany).
  • A scoping review of barriers and facilitators to developing and implementing climate-resilience policy in health systems is being led by Denise Thomson (Canada), with support from three students involved in Cochrane's mentoring program: Abdirahman Moallim Ibrahim (Somalia), Amin Sharifan (Iran) and Maya Magdy (Egypt).
  • A scoping review of published evidence syntheses on climate-health topics is being led by Denise Thomson (Canada).

Completed projects

In 2022 we published an editorial on the Cochrane Library, "Protecting human health in a time of climate change: how Cochrane should respond," outlining how Cochrane can help meet decision-makers' needs in the area of the health impacts of climate change.

In 2023 a publication led by three students in our group - Tara Chen, Julia Sharobim and Omolola Alede - with support from Denise Thomson and Dr. Thanya Pathirana, was published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine: Chen, T. T.-W., D. Thomson, J. Sharobim, O. T. Alade and T. Pathirana (2024). "Integrating a climate lens into the design of education programmes for health professionals." BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine 29(3): 203. DOI: 10.1136/bmjebm-2023-112397

The findings of the project, "Development and validation of PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE search filters for exposure pathways linking climate change with human health," a working group project led by Maria-Inti Metzendorf and involving group members m Ina Monsef, Katherine Jones, L Susan Wieland,  Heidrun Janka,  Camila Escobar Liquitay and Denise Thomson are now available on Medrxiv: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.07.24308606v1.