CARE-C partner of the ISMED-CLIM Horizon Project
CARE-C of the Cyprus Institute is a partner of ‘Innovative Solutions across the MEDiterranean for mitigation of Climate change-related heaLth rIsks and enhancing health systeM resilience’ (ISMED-CLIM), a new Horizon project, which aims to engage and mobilise regional stakeholders across the Mediterranean, in implementing a wide array of adaptation solutions to mitigate the health effects of climate change, and provide evidence for their feasibility, user acceptance and efficacy.
Specifically, ISMED-CLIM will:
- enhance the understanding of climate change effects on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and vector-borne infections across representative European countries within the Mediterranean.
- quantify, for the first time, how public health interventions integrating state-of-the-art technologies, public and social media, with vulnerable citizens’ participation can reduce personal exposures to heat and air pollution and related health effects.
- validate the feasibility and user acceptance among high-risk professionals of a regional early warning and risk prediction tool to mitigate the risk posed by exposure to sand flies and related diseases;
- employ open, participatory, and co-creative methodologies to locally adapt and refine existing evidence-based practices and prototype tools to increase the preparedness and ability of health systems in the Mediterranean to deliver safe, effective, and efficient care to citizens. The consortium will test the proposed demonstration solutions initially in eight sites and coordinate ten replications in six sites in five European countries (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal), in alignment with Climate Change Adaptation Mission objectives.
The partners aim to integrate the produced knowledge from epidemiology, forecasting, exposure and health data with insights from the demonstration and replication activities into a knowledge portal and policy decision-centric and action-oriented dashboard for policymakers, healthcare administrators, professionals and citizens. ISMED-CLIM’s approaches will be readily applicable in other European regions affected by the same or other climate change-related stressors, such as forest fire smoke, floods, ozone, and cold.
ISMED-CLIM, involving 27 actors from 7 countries, started on 1 November 2024 and will run for 4 years. The project proposes solutions and applications to be tested in European countries across the Mediterranean, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Italy, Spain and Portugal, which are strongly affected by the impacts of climate change.
The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cyprus coordinates the project, in collaboration with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Social and Political Sciences, while from Cyprus also CARE-C of the Cyprus Institute, the Health Insurance Organisation (OAI), the Federation of Pensioners EKYSY and the high-tech company EBOS Technologies Ltd are partners.
Funding: Horizon Europe
Start date: 1 November 2024
End date: 31 October 2028
“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or REA. Neither the European Union, nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”
