{"id":256866,"date":"2017-07-25T06:06:53","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T20:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=256866"},"modified":"2017-07-25T06:06:53","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T20:06:53","slug":"chcc-building-resilience-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chcc-building-resilience-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"CHCC: Building resilience against climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-256866 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chcc-building-resilience-climate-change\/chcc-pix1\/'>CHCC-pix1<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-256868'>\n\t\t\t\tDivision of Fish and Wildlife\u2019s Jill Lisk Clarke talks about possible resources that can be leveraged to combat climate change. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chcc-building-resilience-climate-change\/chcc-pix2\/'>CHCC-pix2<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chcc-building-resilience-climate-change\/chcc-pix3\/'>CHCC-pix3<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-256870'>\n\t\t\t\tCommonwealth Healthcare Corp. &#8216;s Warren Villagomez discusses key health issues in regards to climate change and emergency preparedness. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chcc-building-resilience-climate-change\/chcc-pix4\/'>CHCC-pix4<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-256871'>\n\t\t\t\tStakeholders from various government agencies and private corporations join CHCC&#8217;s workshop to build resilience against climate effects. Janice McMichael of the Starfish Alliance discusses the BRACE model and vulnerable populations. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>To build resilience against climate change, or BRACE, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is collaborating with stakeholders to engage with the community on prevention and emergency preparedness for climate-related health threats.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0CHCC chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a said that BRACE will enhance the strategies and policy priorities for state and local public health and related partnerships.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy building capacity with the Office of the Governor Climate Change Initiative, Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality, Bureau of Environmental Health, Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Public Health Programs, the Insular Area Health Agencies will assist in reducing climate-related morbidity and mortality. It will help our community fully identify and assess climate-related health threats and will increase communication and information sharing among insular areas, the federal government, and other state\/local governments and partnerships,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Mu\u00f1a noted that combating the effects of climate change has become a growing concern within both the local and global community,\u00a0with the Commonwealth and other Pacific Islands most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate changes and isolation.<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Ralph DLG Torres added that environmental changes affect the CNMI\u2019s unique environmental resources and infrastructure, which includes critical centers such as the island\u2019s hospital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProactive efforts to protect our environment and resources is key to ensuring that we can adapt to current and future changes, and prepare solutions to possible threats. With the establishment of the CNMI resilience working group and CHCC\u2019s initiative to combat the effects of climate change, we can collectively prepare with available resources and the key stakeholders to really make progress,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n<p>CNMI Climate Change coordinator Richard Salas noted the deeply intertwined relationship between a changing climate and human health.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIncreased intensity of existing health risks is highly likely and new public health challenges could arise through other pathways. The CNMI lies in a tropical zone, which may experience increasingly favorable ambient conditions for mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, as well as several food- and water-borne diseases. Contributing factors to the spread of these disorders, such as poor waste management practices, inadequate infrastructure, and uninformed public health practices, should be controlled and corrected as soon as possible to minimize the risk of transmission,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Territorial epidemiologist Dr. Paul White added that health encompasses environmental, animal, and human health, adding that a \u201cone-health approach\u201d must be considered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is much debate as to the cause of climate change, but change is occurring and all these factors connect with one another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In building capacity, it was shared that the effects of climate change can also affect people\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n<p>Salas said that when it comes to adaptation planning and public health, it is important to prioritize the most vulnerable populations in the CNMI.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommunities across the CNMI may be subjected to similar environmental changes and conditions, but the lasting effects will vary depending on a number of socio-economic factors. This was evident after Typhoon Soudelor, as recovery efforts in certain villages took much longer than in others and some losses have yet to be reconciled. This layer of complexity must be considered in adaptation planning for the CNMI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mu\u00f1a, improving community resilience in terms of healthcare is an intensive planning process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdaptive management practices, stewardship, and community education and involvement is needed to address our healthcare needs and the health of our community. This would require collaboration across multi-sectors of government and members of the community, therefore it is a community based-approach coupled with effective management and policy that can lead to successful adaptation planning for the CNMI.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To build resilience against climate change, or BRACE, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is collaborating with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":256868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17698,666,26,140],"class_list":["post-256866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-brace","tag-chcc","tag-cnmi","tag-commonwealth-healthcare-corp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}