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Canadian contributions to International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 were designed to improve the understanding of climate change impacts and adaptation and to gain insight into issues surrounding community health and well-being in Canada's arctic. Fifty-two research projects, involving scientists, northern partners and communities, focused on the arctic atmosphere and climate, cryosphere, oceans, sea ice, marine ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, wildlife as well as human health and community well-being. Key research findings on these topics are presented in this special issue of Climatic Change. This introductory paper presents an overview of the international and Canadian IPY programs and a summary of Canadian IPY results, including progress made in data management and capacity building. The legacy of IPY in Canada includes expanded international scientific cooperation, meaningful partnerships with northern communities, and more northern residents with research training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early warning systems for climate change adaptation, preparedness and response will need to take into consideration the range of factors that can drive risk and vulnerability. There are no data from which to nominate the most effective, efficient and reliable wildlife health signals for public health planning, but there is growing opinion that wildlife health could signal public health vulnerability related to climate change. The objective of this commentary is to explore the potential for wildlife to contribute to climate change early warning for public health protection in Canada. Wildlife impact many determinants of human health through both direct and indirect mechanisms; several of which are strongly interconnected. There is a long history of wildlife serving as bio-sentinels for environmental pollutants and pathogens. Wildlife health could support public health threat detection, risk assessment and risk communication by detecting and tracking infectious and non-infectious hazards, being bio-sentinels of effects of new or changed hazards, providing biologically understandable information to motivate changes in personal risk behaviours and providing insights into new and unanticipated threats. Public health risk communication and strategic planning priorities for climate change could benefit from a wildlife health intelligence system that collects data on incidents of disease and hazard discovery as well as information on social and environmental conditions that affect risk perception and likelihoods of human exposure or harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have detected an effect of earlier temperatures on the incidence of campylobacteriosis in humans, but without adjustment for earlier numbers of cases of the disease. We estimated the effect of temperature on the number of cases notified by week in Montreal, Canada, from 1 January 1990 to 26 March 2006, simultaneously with the effect of the numbers of cases notified in the preceding weeks. The current campylobacteriosis count (week 0) was modelled by negative binomial regression, with earlier weekly average temperatures and earlier counts as predictors. Secular trends were accounted for by cubic spline functions and seasonal variations by sine-cosine functions. Indicator variables identified weeks with fewer than 5 working days. In the final statistical model, a 1°C increase in temperature above 10°C during any of weeks −1 to −6 was associated with a 0.8% (95% CI: 0.3% to 1.3%) increase in the current count. For each additional notified case during any of weeks −1 to −5 or −9 to −12, the increase in the current count was approximately 0.5% (95% CI: 0.2% to 1.0%). Thus, earlier temperatures and earlier counts have independent effects, that of temperatures being the larger one. The temperature effect is too small to require short term public health planning. However, in Montreal, an increase in average temperature of the order of 4.5°C, forecast by some for 2055, could produce a 23% increase in incidence, resulting in about 4,000 excess cases per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]