How to build the climate resilience and environmental sustainability of your facility and services

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title How to build the climate resilience and environmental sustainability of your facility and services
 
Creator Mash, Robert J. Schwerdtle, Patricia N.
 
Subject Family medicine climate resilience; environmental sustainability; primary care; district hospitals; carbon footprint
Description African district-level health facilities and services face many interconnected challenges including infectious disease outbreaks, conflict and insecurity, fiscal austerity, population displacement and climate-related hazards such as heat, flooding and drought. Emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction plans have often not included the challenges from climate hazards. In this article, we outline six practical steps that a facility can take to assess its vulnerabilities, capacities and climate-related risks, and develop a plan to improve climate resilience and environmental sustainability: (1) a desktop review of the facility and services; (2) contextualisation and planning; (3) an audit of the facility; (4) a focus group discussion; (5) integration and analysis; (6) creation of an action plan. Environmental sustainability needs to be considered simultaneously with climate resilience as the key domains are the same (workforce; energy; water, waste and sanitation; infrastructure and equipment). In addition, the article outlines how to perform a carbon footprint and integrate the findings into one action plan for the facility. The article provides a practical roadmap for evaluating and improving the climate resilience and environmental sustainability of primary care or primary hospital facilities, and readers can access the referenced resources if they need additional details and support.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor Supported by TEAM grant from VLIR
Date 2026-05-25
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v18i1.5445
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 18, No 1 (2026); 6 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/5445/9336 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/5445/9337 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/5445/9338 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/5445/9339
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2026 Robert J. Mash, Patricia N. Schwerdtle https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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