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In this Personal View, we explain the ways that climatic risks affect the transmission, perception, response, and lived experience of COVID-19. First, temperature, wind, and humidity influence the transmission of COVID-19 in ways not fully understood, although non-climatic factors appear more important than climatic factors in explaining disease transmission. Second, climatic extremes coinciding with COVID-19 have affected disease exposure, increased susceptibility of people to COVID-19, compromised emergency responses, and reduced health system resilience to multiple stresses. Third, long-term climate change and prepandemic vulnerabilities have increased COVID-19 risk for some populations (eg, marginalised communities). The ways climate and COVID-19 interact vary considerably between and within populations and regions, and are affected by dynamic and complex interactions with underlying socioeconomic, political, demographic, and cultural conditions. These conditions can lead to vulnerability, resilience, transformation, or collapse of health systems, communities, and livelihoods throughout varying timescales. It is important that COVID-19 response and recovery measures consider climatic risks, particularly in locations that are susceptible to climate extremes, through integrated planning that includes public health, disaster preparedness, emergency management, sustainable development, and humanitarian response.

Health information systems (HIS) are used to manage information related to population health. The goal of this research was to conduct an evaluation of a HIS used at a hospital in south-western Uganda using participatory approaches. The evaluation structure was based on guidelines generated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and a series of theoretical and methodological concepts regarding participatory engagement that encouraged stakeholder participation throughout the evaluation. The primary objectives were to describe the areas of strength and limitations of the HIS, and develop potential system enhancements. Ultimately, engagement of local staff members throughout each stage of the evaluation resulted in the development of a series of recommendations considered relevant and feasible by local stakeholders. We build on these results by highlighting the value of stakeholder engagement and opportunities to apply participatory and community-based research methods and an Ecohealth framework to an HIS evaluation.

Climate change adaptation is increasingly considered an urgent priority for policy action. Billions of dollars have been pledged for adaptation finance, with many donor agencies requiring that adaptation is distinct from baseline development. However, practitioners and academics continue to question what adaptation looks like on the ground, especially in a developing country. This study examines the current framing of planned adaptation amidst low socioeconomic development and considers the practical implications of this framing for adaptation planning. Three overarching approaches to planned adaptation in a developing country context emerged in a systematic review of 30 peer‐reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2015, including: (1) technocratic risk management, which treats adaptation as additional to development, (2) pro‐poor vulnerability reduction, which acknowledges the ability of conventional development to foster and act as adaptation, and (3) sustainable adaptation, which suggests that adaptation should only be integrated into a type of development that is socially and environmentally sustainable. Over half of ‘sustainable adaptation’ articles in this review took a critical adaptation approach, drawing primarily from political ecology and postdevelopment studies, and emphasizing the malleability of adaptation. The reviewed articles highlight how the different framings of the relationship between adaptation and development result in diverse and sometimes contradictory messages regarding adaptation design, implementation, funding, monitoring, and evaluation. This review illustrates the need to continually interrogate the multiple framings of adaptation and development and to foster a pragmatic and pluralistic dialogue regarding planned adaptation and transformative change in developing countries. WIREs Clim Change2016, 7:707–726. doi: 10.1002/wcc.416 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.