Integrating Climate Services into Health Systems for Nutrition Security: A Scoping Review

Climate information services (CIS) are science-based tools used to inform decision-making in climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture, water resources, energy, disaster risk reduction and health. These CIS rely on high-quality climate and weather data in order to predict and prepare for specific extreme weather or climate events such as droughts and floods. Within the health sector, most CIS have been developed to prevent and treat specific infectious diseases or food insecurity; however less is known on how CIS have been used for nutrition programming. We conducted a scoping review of available evidence, on the use of CIS to implement nutrition interventions (both direct and indirect health and other sectors) ahead of extreme weather or climate events. We searched PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus, and grey literature sources for primary studies (observational, intervention, and program evaluations) conducted in low- and middle-income countries from January 1, 2000 to April 1, 2024. We included 48 studies, representing 67 country-level programs. The majority of programs were found in the African region (n=38), followed by Region of the Americas (n=9), Western Pacific Region (n=8), Eastern Mediterranean Region (n=1), and the European Region (n=1). Most CIS were developed in response to vector-borne diseases (17 countries), droughts (10 countries), floods (9 countries) or multi-hazards (11 countries). The types of nutrition programs deployed were largely outside of the health sector including poverty alleviation (n=49 programs), water, sanitation and hygiene (n=24 programs), disease prevention (n=23 programs) or emergency nutrition (n=19 programs). Few studies evaluated impacts of CIS on nutritional status in vulnerable populations. There is urgency and opportunity for better integration of weather and climate information into health systems decision-making and workforce preparedness at local levels to improve both short- and long-term nutrition outcomes.