24/10/2025
At the recent World Health Summit , experts Leah Werner, Ashley Ward, Neil Bernard, Chris Carter, Ethel Maciel & A/Prof Jason Lee came together to discuss how rising temperatures are reshaping public health — and more importantly, how we can build resilience at personal, community, and system levels.
Moderated by Femi Oke and supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, the key priorities for action highlighted are;
🔹 Centering vulnerable groups — including low-income communities, workers, pregnant and disadvantaged women, people experiencing homelessness — whose heightened risks remain under-researched and often overlooked.
🔹 Building on trusted relationships - “Community Lighthouse” resilience hubs in faith-based and civic institutions provide a scalable community model for providing a trusted places for cooling, wellness checks, and other support services during extreme heat.
🔹 Speaking a common language - listen to what people are experiencing in their daily lives, build on existing community survival strategies, and secure livelihoods first so health measures are feasible
🔹 Harnessing traditional knowledge in addition to modern innovations - such as traditional settlement designs, Miyawaki “tiny forest”, and quantum computing, to advance understanding and interventions of heat impacts.
🔹 Shifting from declarations to implementation and funded action - the COP30 Belém Action Plan is one such shift with focus now on climate-health surveillance and data integration; capacity building and infrastructure for health systems; innovation & technology, including decarbonising healthcare.
🔹 Broadening the heat conversation beyond health to economic and social well-being, using the “HEALTH” lens (Housing, Energy, Agriculture, Labor, Transportation/Infrastructure, Health), aligning incentives and demonstrating benefits across sectors to make whole-of-society action possible
🔹 Uniting evidence + empathy - Data-driven risk management combined with compassion and trusted relationships drives adoption and success.
As A/Prof Jason Lee shared in closing, every vulnerability exposed by heat is also a chance to rebuild stronger, fairer systems. Let us transform vulnerability into opportunity, using this moment to address root inequalities and build climate-resilient communities.
World Health Organization (WHO) World Meteorological Organization National University of Singapore NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
