An innovative public health approach to overlapping societal challenges: reinforcing communities’ adaptive capacity to the adverse impacts of heatwaves on serious illness and end-of-life care

15/09/26 - 14/03/29

Background: Projections for Brussels suggest that heat-related deaths will rise across age groups in the future. Heatwaves are expected to cause sudden deterioration of chronic illnesses and death among the elderly. Burden on informal and formal carers – mainly women – will thus significantly increase in the coming decades. Adverse impacts of heatwaves will be more noticeable in deprived neighbourhoods hosting older people living in highly exposed built environments. Showing the highest rate poverty in Belgium, Brussels is home to a considerable population that carries this double risk; therefore, increasing frequency of heatwaves and related care needs of people with a serious illness and those nearing the end-of-life are topics of great societal concern. This research thus addresses the overlap between Climate & Energy and Health & Well-being, two of the six societal challenges for the Brussels-Capital Region. 

Aim: To understand drivers of vulnerability and factors enhancing adaptive capacity to the adverse impacts of heatwaves on the deterioration of a serious illness that may lead to an increased burden of end-of-life care among most vulnerable communities in Brussels. In this context, adaptive capacity is the ability to anticipate, understand, empathise and act to alleviate the distress and suffering resulting from heatwaves. 

Methods: An interdisciplinary mixed-methods study design combining public health, epidemiology along with health, educational and climate sciences will guide a socio-ecological study aimed at identifying up to three neighbourhoods highly exposed to heatwaves concentrating communities at risk of suffering from the adverse impacts of heatwaves on serious illness and end-of-life care. Subsequently, factors influencing individual and collective adaptive capacity to heatwaves among most vulnerable communities will be explored through a participatory qualitative study. 

Impacts: This project benefits from a French-speaking researcher with previous experience in community-based research among deprived populations supported by VUB supervisors’ expertise and local partners. The research will timely develop a new understanding of adaptive capacity to heatwaves from an innovative interdisciplinary perspective focused on strengthening community-based responses to contemporary societal challenges. Ultimately, its outputs will inform social transition in the Brussels-Capital Region while fostering city’s resilience to climate change.

IRIS is an MSCA postdoctoral programme COFUNDed by the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), and the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Horizon Europe).