Commonwealth Health Ministers briefings published

Six briefing papers on managing the health effects of climate change ' commissioned from UCL by the Commonwealth Secretariat for the May 2009 meeting of Commonwealth Health Ministers ' have been published. The briefings draw on the UCL?Lancet Commission on Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change report, which was launched just prior to the Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting on Health & Climate Change and the World Health Assembly meeting - which sets priorities for the World Health Organization (WHO) - on 17?18 May 2009. Mary Phillips, UCL Director of Research Planning, attended the meetings in Geneva, Switzerland. She said: 'Both the briefing papers and the report itself were well-received by health ministers. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, addressing the ministers, praised the UCL?Lancet Commission's report as very valuable.' The report asserts that climate change is the biggest global-health threat of the 21st century. It was the work of UCL academics from many disciplines across the university - including health, anthropology, geography, engineering, economics, law and philosophy. Lead author Professor Anthony Costello (UCL Institute for Global Health) said: 'This climate-change project brought down the traditional interdisciplinary barriers common at all universities, and hoped it could act as a model for global governance bodies to work together.