Ghosh U, Sen B, and Bose S (2019) Photo voice as a participatory approach to influence climate related health policy in the Sundarbans, The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 3, Special Issue, S22, DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30165-2
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report highlights community-based strategies to drive effective and ecologically sustainable local adaptation strategies. A climate change hot spot, Sundarbans, India, needs collective action between communities and for local level health and non-health decision makers to find sustainable solutions to combat the impacts of climate change on child health.
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The FHS-India team has been engaged in research on the human health status in the Indian Sundarbans since 2009 and came up with a comprehensive report in 2010. A more in-depth report on the health of children of the Indian Sundarbans was published in 2013 in the name of Sundarbans Health Watch. In this present endeavor we have reflected on the pathways of climate change impacts on the health of the Sundarbans’ children. This report is based on a mixed method study conducted in Sagar, one of the six most vulnerable blocks out of the nineteen administrative blocks of the Sundarbans. This study has made an attempt to find out the present condition of different aspects of child health under climate crisis, to identify the gaps in service delivery and possible ways out on the basis of scientific evidence.
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The FHS India team have produced a new film titled Children of an Uncertain Climate, based on an FHS study titled ‘Decoding Child Health Impact under Climate Crisis.’ This short film identifies the pathways by which Climate Change is impacting the child health in Indian Sundarbans – a climatically vulnerable setting.
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The Sundarbans, the mangrove forest delta shared both by India and Bangladesh, is among the worst hit regions of climate change in the world. Even though food insecurities due to climate change are felt across the region, the distribution of vulnerabilities is largely uneven depending upon existing climatic and social intersections.
Within the context of socio-cultural and political dynamics, and rapid globalization, efforts to respond to, mitigate, or adapt to climate change needs to address issues of equity and social justice, posing both challenges and opportunities.
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Ghosh U, Bose S, Bramhachari R (2017) Geo-climatically Vulnerable Sundarbans: A social network analysis of mother’s social ties and child care, International Journal for Population, Development and Reproductive Health, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 27 - 41
Present paper explores mother's individual and system level social ties to support in taking care of children in resource scarce setting of the Indian Sundarbans. Climatic uncertainties resulted in male out-migration in search of alternative livelihoods leading towards female-headed households. Women now face triple burden of works – livelihood, household chores and childcare. Hence it is pertinent to know how and to what extent social ties support child care in female headed households in comparison to male headed households.
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Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Ghaosh U, Brahmachari R and Paina L (2017) Engaging stakeholders: lessons from the use of participatory tools for improving maternal and child care health services, Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(Suppl 2):106, DOI: 10.1186/s12961-017-0271-z
Effective stakeholder engagement in research and implementation is important for improving the development and implementation of policies and programmes. A varied number of tools have been employed for stakeholder engagement. In this paper, we discuss two participatory methods for engaging with stakeholders – participatory social network analysis (PSNA) and participatory impact pathways analysis (PIPA). Based on our experience, we derive lessons about when and how to apply these tools.
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Sen B, Dhimal M, Latheef AT and Ghosh U (2017) Climate change: health effects and response in South Asia, BMJ, 359, doi: 10.1136/bmj.j5117
The 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change concluded that although climate change was the biggest public health threat of the 21st century, tackling it could be the greatest global health opportunity. All South Asian countries have ratified the Paris agreement, committing to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop systems to respond to the effects of climate change. However, climate change is not yet given priority in countries’ health agendas. The effect on the poorest and most vulnerable in society is also often neglected in the climate change discourse.
The authors examine the health effects of climate change in South Asian countries and current strategies to address these, and recommend an inclusive approach to climate change adaptation planning in the region.
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This Future Health Systems research brief examines the importance of social ties to mothers whose husbands, because of work, remain absent from the household for prolonged periods of time.
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Ghosh U, Bose S, Bramhachari R and Mandal S (2016) Expressing collective voices on children’s health: photovoice exploration with mothers of young children from the Indian Sundarbans, BMC Health Services Research, 16:1866, DOI: 10.1186/s12913-016-1866-8
The Indian Sundarbans is marked by inhospitable terrain and frequent climatic shocks which jointly hinder access to health care. Community members, and women in particular, have few means to communicate their concerns to local decision makers. Photovoice is one way in which communities can raise their local health challenges with decision makers. This study unlocks mothers’ voices on the determinants of their children’s health to inform local level decision-making on child health issues in the Indian Sundarbans.
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The objective of this brief is to introduce the Photovoice method, highlight how it helped capture the voices of mothers in the Sundarbans, and demonstrate how the method can bridge the gap between communities and local decision-makers.
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এফ.এইচ.এস.- ইন্ডিয়া ২০০৯ সাল থেকেই সুন্দরবনের মানুষের স্বাস্থ্যের ওপর গবেষণার কাজ চালাচ্ছে। বর্তমানে (২০১০ সাল থেকে) এফ.এইচ.এস. শিশু স্বাস্থ্যের ওপর বেশি গুরুত্ব দিয়ে কাজ করছে। সম্প্রতি সুন্দরবনের পাথরপ্রতিমা ব্লকে শিশু -স্বাস্থ্যের ওপর একটি সমীক্ষা করা হয়েছে। বর্তমান রিপোর্টটিতে এলাকার শিশু স্বাস্থ্যের বিভিন্ন দিক ও তার বর্তমান অবস্থা, স্বাস্থ্য পরিষেবার ক্ষেত্রে ফাঁকফোকর গুলি ও সম্ভাব্য সমাধানসূত্র তুলে ধরার চেষ্টা করা হয়েছে। এফ.এইচ.এস.- ইন্ডিয়ার এই গবেষণাটি আরও বেশি করে সুন্দরবনের মানুষের মাঝে পৌঁছে দেওয়ার জন্য এই বাংলা সংস্করণটি প্রকাশিত হল।
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The present report focuses on one of the more vulnerable blocks of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, India -- namely Patharpratima -- as a representative block of the Sundarbans. To understand the root of the problem, the study takes a child health right approach and attempts to understand whether and to what extent the rights are protected, especially in climatically challenged areas such as the Sundarbans. In a nutshell, this report generates research evidence on the barriers to service delivery and access of health care services for children and endeavours to find out ways to make the system more effective in the Sundarbans.
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Challenges of livelihood and inclusive rural development in the era of globalization deals with different challenges in rural development and recommended practical ideas for development. This book is an extremely timely publication when the prevailing situations are putting more and more emphasis on the sharing of knowledge and ideas in the development sector. The research papers highlighting strength of our programmes and focuses on the areas of intervention. Researchers and general readers will find this volume very informative and useful in the area of policy making.
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