Climate change poses major risks to human health, with rising air pollution, increasing surface temperatures, and more frequent extreme weather events. The Mediterranean region, situated between temperate and arid climates, has been identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as one of Europe’s climate change hotspots. The region’s average temperature increase surpasses the global average, and rising extreme weather events and forest fires, impact both mortality and morbidity.

Addressing the impact of climate change in this region presents several challenges. Mobilising local stakeholders and citizen, and implementing effective solutions to mitigate health risks are difficult. In addition, existing methods, like alert systems for reducing exposure to heat and air pollution and vector disease models for evaluating risk to specific populations, remain inefficient. Finally, there is a notable absence of comprehensive risk assessments, emergency plans and mitigation strategies, along with difficulties in applying evidence-based forecasting, early warning systems, and decision-making models.

The vision of ISMED-CLIM is to tackle climate change-related health risks with evidence-based tools and collaborative action, safeguarding communities and ecosystems. Through five Living Labs in eight Mediterranean sites, ISMED-CLIM will test early warning tools and health interventions, to help reduce climate-related health risks and strengthen healthcare systems’ resilience.