Our Challenge
Our story
Launched in February 2024, Urban SHADE is a three-year programme. Researchers, health service providers, government agencies and communities in urban informal settlements will work together to improve the resilience and responsiveness of health services during and after extreme weather events. We are working in 12 informal settlements in five cities in India, Sierra Leone and Kenya. In these countries, climate change adaptation is a priority. The poorest and most marginalised in urban areas are experiencing poor health outcomes due to extreme weather events.
Urban SHADE consortium emerged from long partnerships with organisations that worked together in the ARISE (Accountability and Responsiveness in Informal Settlements for Equity) consortium. ARISE aimed to enhance accountability and improve the health and wellbeing of marginalised populations living in informal urban settlements in several countries including India, Sierra Leone, Kenya and Bangladesh. During ARISE, researchers felt the need to understand more about climate impacts on health and livelihood, and how health services can be strengthened.
The Urban SHADE project will continue to explore things of urban health and marginality and vulnerability, building on relationships and partnerships from ARISE project work, while looking into health impacts of extreme weather events such as flash floods, landslides, heatwaves, among others.
Our work
We work with communities, community-based organisations, health service providers and public bodies in India, Kenya and Sierra Leone. In each location, our researchers will assess the health and social vulnerabilities and the capacity of local health services. We will explore how recent extreme weather events affected health service responsiveness.
Together we will co-produce new interventions using participatory research to strengthen health systems and establish equitable ways of working in partnership in each location. These interventions will be monitored and evaluated for feasibility and cost. If effective they will be promoted to local, national and international policymakers to encourage widespread use.
Extreme weather
The urban poor often live in informal settlements that experience the worst effects of extreme weather events. They live in hillsides that experience landslides after heavy rain, or coastal and riverside locations that flood. In the plains, they often live in houses or buildings which increase indoor temperature during summers. They are exposed to heat waves due to the ‘urban heat island effect’ and work outdoors in the heat, and their lack of access to cooling devices.
Urban informal settlements
Low-income urban residents living in informal settlements already feel the impact of extreme weather events on their health and wellbeing. The built environment of their settlements, poor-quality housing, lack of piped water, lack of drainage systems and crucially lack of emergency care have additional impact on health. People who are marginalised because of their income, gender, age, caste, disability and ethnicity are worse off.
Impact on health and health services
In informal urban communities, health services are provided by a complex system of formal and informal providers. However, access to formal quality healthcare is limited for them as it is sometimes non-existent, inaccessible or unaffordable. This is particularly true during extreme weather events.