Five years after the Paris climate agreement to limit global temperature rise to “well below 2°C” the world observed a 1.2°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. In order to protect human health, it is imperative that efforts are made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep the temperature targets agreed. The changing climate affects the conditions for human health, and the basic requirements for maintaining good health. Starting with the 2015 Lancet Commission on climate change and health that described tackling climate change as the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century, the talk will give an overview of some health impacts covered in the Lancet Countdown and end by focusing on what the Lancet Countdown in 2020 called the often “unseen” impacts of climate change on human health – the mental health impacts.

This lesson discusses and explains why mental health is difficult to define using international terminology. It also introduces why there is a much higher burden of disease linked with mental disorders in Europe compared to, for example, Africa. The session discussed why there is a different spending on mental health treatment in developing countries compared to western countries.
Participants: Dr. Matt Muijen.

The video introduces health challenges for the very varied group of migrants. A large part voluntarily migrated, but non-voluntary groups include refugees, IDPs, Stateless and trafficked persons. Internal migrants are both due to conflicts and disasters and general urbanisation. The different groups have very varied health issues, and also very varied protective frameworks – whether international conventions or national laws and services - and may not be able or willing to seek health care.

This presentation provides an introduction to migrant health and its importance in the global health context. We’ll look at the key concepts of migration and ethnicity and how they are related to health. Furthermore we’ll look at how barriers may arise in access to health care for migrants, and finally we’ll provide examples from a Scandinavian context on differences in health between migrants and ethnic Danes.

There is a vast need for mental health support in populations affected by adversity globally. However, current evidence-based psychological interventions require significant resources and are highly challenging to bring to scale. This presentation will focus on an effort to address needs for mental health support through a WHO-developed guided self-help intervention. The presentation will discuss the adaptation and evaluation of the intervention with South Sudanese refugees in Uganda. Subsequently, the speaker will reflect on how this type of intervention may lend itself for integration in programming outside of the health sector to address the social determinants of mental health.

Nordic Global Health Talks is a monthly webinar series about global health research at Nordic universities, hosted by the Nordic Network on Global Health.

Presentation by Stefan Swartling Peterson, Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Tropical Medicine was the origin of today’s Global Health, which is now increasingly under debate. There is the “decolonize” debate, but also the failure to overcome the “implementation gap” - whereby a majority of maternal child deaths today could be prevented with existing knowledge. In this talk, Stefan Swartling Peterson will sketch the evolution of Global Health as a discipline, and share thoughts on what a transformation to “Glocal, Sustainable Health” could look like.