Timely Alerts, Safer Futures: Leveraging Heat-Health Early Warnings for Children

As we conclude our three-part webinar series on extreme heat and maternal, newborn and child health, we turn to the critical systems that make an effective heat response possible. Well designed heat-health early warning systems serve as the crucial link between meteorological forecasting and public health action, providing the alerts that activate risk communication campaigns, prepare health facilities, and mobilize protective measures.

Our first two webinars explored developing targeted risk communication strategies and ensuring health facilities can recognize and treat heat-related illnesses. In this final webinar addresses a foundational element that enables an effective health response: heat-health early warning systems. We will examine what defines an effective heat-health early warning system and explore how governments are implementing these systems to protect vulnerable populations. We will hear findings from a global review of heat-health early warning systems and learn from the UK's and Senegal's experience in connecting meteorological services with health sector responses. 

This webinar shows how early warning systems provide the essential infrastructure that allows all the protective measures we've discussed – from targeted messaging to clinical preparedness – to be deployed proactively when extreme heat threatens children’s health and wellbeing.

This series was organized by the Children’s Environmental Health Collaborative, UNICEF, and the Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN)  and seeks to explore the latest evidence and highlight real-world examples of national and sub-national action.