Category Archives: Health

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #4

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Solar Sister’s Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
Clean Energy Services to Achieve Millennium Development Health Goals

In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from basic forms of injustice and inequality in our world: extreme poverty, illiteracy and ill health. This pledge became the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) to be achieved by 2015. Health is at the heart of the MDG’s with three goals related directly to health: reduce child mortality, improve material health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases). Health is also linked with the achievement of all the other goals, especially eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal education, and gender equality.

A key ingredient of achieving these health goals will have to be reliable access to clean energy. This has two dimensions: First, displacing the use and consequences of unhealthy fuels like kerosene and fuel wood that I have written about in my earlier blog pieces in this series. Second, reliable clean energy supply is vital for health care providers to help them focus on their job of improving health of the poor. It is this second dimension that I want to speak to you about now. For without energy, how can hospitals and clinics ensure refrigeration of critical vaccines and sterilization of equipment? How can important medical procedures like delivery of babies be carried out in the dark? How can simple medical records be digitized for faster and more efficient service? How can public health messages to prevent deadly diseases be spread on radio and television?

Solar Sister Zuura is also pursuing a Bachelor of Nursing. Hear Zuura talk about providing clean energy for better healthcare services in her village on YouTube. (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Good news is that we have a growing number of innovative organizations and individuals around the world, who are working hard to raise awareness on this important connection between health and energy. For example, Solar Sister Zuura in Uganda is also pursuing a Bachelors of Nursing degree. Zuura talks about the need of light for night and evening shifts in health clinics while putting up IV fluids and emergency blood transfusions. She is proud to be a Solar Sister Entrepreneur because not only can she earn a living now, but help her bring light which can save many lives in her community.

Another inspiring story is that of Solar Sister’s friend Dr. Laura Stachel, Co-Founder & Executive Director at WE CARE Solar. In 2008, Dr.Stachel went to Northern Nigeria to study ways to lower maternal mortality in state hospitals. She witnessed deplorable conditions in state facilities including sporadic electricity that impaired maternity and surgical care. Without a reliable source of electricity, nighttime deliveries were attended in near darkness, cesarean sections were cancelled or conducted by flashlight, and critically ill patients waited hours or days for life-saving procedures. The outcomes were often tragic. Moved by this critical need, she wrote to her husband Hal Aronson, a solar energy educator back in Berkeley, California. Together, Laura and Hal co-founded WE CARE Solar to improve maternal health outcomes in regions without reliable electricity which designs portable, cost-effective solar suitcases that power critical lighting, mobile communication devices and medical devices in low resource areas without reliable electricity.

WE CARE Solar's robust, plug-and-play Solar Suitcases facilitate timely, safe, appropriate emergency obstetric care and improve outcomes for mothers and newborns (Photo credit: WE CARE Solar, 2011)

If we can support many more women like Solar Sister Zuura and Dr. Laura Stachel around the world, no more lives would be lost for the lack of light. The UN has announced 2012 as the International Sustainable Energy for All Year. As part of the initiative, the United Nations Foundation has launched a new global Energy Access Practitioner Network to mobilize execution. You can also make a difference by understanding and increasing awareness on this important issue of energy and health.

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org.

The Impact of Coal Power on Health

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For many countries, both developing and developed, coal powers our lives. China is the largest consumer of coal in the world, and one of the largest users of coal-derived electricity. Coal has been the traditional form of energy for generations, and the health impacts of its operations (both in the extraction and production processes) have been known for many years. For a long time, it was seen as the only real option to meet the demands of an energy-using world population. And for now, this may be true- however; the recent turn towards alternative, sustainable fuels has provided an interesting alternative to coal. This could have positive effects on both the environment and our health.

In 2011, the American Lung Association released a new report on the health hazards of coal-fired power plants: “Toxic Air: The Case For Cleaning Up Coal-Fired Power Plants.”  According to the report, in the U.S. alone, “Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.”

That question of balance is brought up in another 2011 paper, which explores countries outside of the U.S.: “Public Health Impact of Coal and Electricity Consumption: Risk-Benefit Balance Varies by Country.” The abstract states:

Access to electricity contributes to good health by powering infrastructure for clean drinking water and sanitation and by reducing the need for indoor burning of coal, wood, and other solid fuels. But these benefits can be offset by health threats posed by the emission from fossil fuel-based electricity production-direct public health effects attributable to particular matter, sulfur and nitrous oxides, [etc.]…are estimated to account for more than 70% of the…costs not factored into the price paid for electricity.

All those statistics and harmful substances sound awful- so what can we do? All over the world, people are making innovative leaps in “clean energy: – from solar power, to hydro power, to wind! While the progress may seem small and slow, if enough people see the need for change, coal could become the non-dominant source of electricity in the not-too-distant future! Check out the incredible Danish island of Samsø, for example: a mecca for climate protection experts where residents generate more energy than they consume using wind turbines, solar panels, straw combustion and heat exchangers that extract heat from cow’s milk.

Infographic explaining the environmental initiatives of Samsø. (Source: http://bit.ly/6PEpNp)

Infographic explaining the environmental initiatives of Samsø. (Source: http://bit.ly/6PEpNp)

Are there alternative energy programs where you live?

Rebuilding Haiti: Solar-paneled Hospitals

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A photovoltaic solar power system at a Partners in Health clinic in Haiti (Photo Credit: Solar World)

A photovoltaic solar power system at a Partners in Health clinic in Haiti (Photo Credit: Solar World)

Last Thursday, January 12, was the two year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti’s capital city, Port au Prince. Many thousands of people died in the quake, and many thousands more were injured and displaced after their homes were destroyed. As the city began to rebuild itself, an exciting trend popped up: solar energy to provide electricity to the huge percentage (85%) of the population living without electricity. One implementation of this is in the solar-powered hospitals being built, such as the Mirebalais Hospital, a teaching facility completely redesigned and donated by Nicholas Clark Architects to be completed in 2012. For photos and more information, check out this article.

Lack of electricity is still one of the main challenges to health care in Haiti. Solar energy projects in medical facilities in Port au Prince and around the country were spurred by stories of doctors performing surgery by flashlight and live-saving vaccines spoiling from lack of refrigeration,. Some projects started before the earthquake, and became even more important and time sensitive in its wake. For instance, the Clinton Global Initiative has been working with Partners in Health (PIH) and the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) since 2006. In 2009, SELF installed a solar panel system on the roof of a public hospital, and plans are underway to outfit up to nine other hospitals.

Part of the Clinton Global Initiative’s work centers around the Light Haiti Project, which works with international partners to provide high performance solar powered portable lighting devices to Haitians. These lights last 750 nights (a minimum of 3,000 hours of light), compared to 15 hours of light from conventional single-use flashlights.

PIH and SELF also completed solar installations in rural communities such as Boucan Carre. According to SELF, the solar installation in Boucan Carre “secure[d] critical loads and improve[d] health care at the clinic, but it also significantly reduced PIH’s need to run a diesel generator for power.” The World Watch Institute’s article about the project states that these installations, as well as the introduction of other types of renewable energy, “can greatly benefit Haitian health development by decreasing clinics’ dependance on fossil fuels and shielding clinics from an unreliable electricity grid.”

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #2

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Solar Sister’s Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
Reading Should Not Be Injurious To Children’s Health

I love to read.

There is so much to read and learn that I feel one lifetime is not enough. There are three things required for reading – First and foremost, a quest for knowledge or stories or both (mysteries are my favorites!). Second, a book, a school lesson, a magazine, a newspaper or a good website, depending on what you like to read and using which platform. Third, but not the least by any means, good light. For how can you read if there is no light?

And even more, how can you read if reading was to be injurious to health? It is not supposed to be like smoking after all. But for many young children in villages and small towns around the world reading is injurious to health in ways as harmful as smoking and even more. Why? Because these children do not have good quality light available to read. They read under the dim, smoky, dangerous kerosene lanterns and candles.

An early advertisement for Edison
Mazda Lamps (Image courtesy of Solar Sister)
An early advertisement for Edison
Mazda Lamps (Image courtesy of Solar Sister)

Then there is also the constant danger of getting burnt as the slightest nudge to the lantern can make hot kerosene spill and cause injuries. A study conducted in Irrua, Nigeria showed that more than 50% of burn victims brought into hospitals were victims of fires caused by overturned or exploding kerosene lamps. Another estimate says that more children die from fire related injuries than fatalities from diseases like tuberculosis or malaria. Burns are no fun – they hurt and make the body vulnerable to many other infections. In fact, skin is the largest organ of the body which acts like an army protecting the castle of our bodies from any outside attack. When skin is burnt, our whole body is at risk. And with risks like this, doing school homework cannot be fun.

Reading should not be injurious to the health of any child.  It should be something that children enjoy as they open their minds to wonderful new worlds of facts and imagination to which books hold the magic key.  Solar Sister provides a solution by displacing kerosene lanterns with solar lights that are affordable, safe and bright.  Solar Sister Mary says she is proud to sell great solar products to her community, as now children do not have to get burnt by kerosene and candle.  Besides, domestic fires not burn houses any more.  With bright light, children are not scared of reading any but look forward to doing their homework and reading new stories.

Solar Sister Mary from Kumi, Eastern Uganda. Hear Mary’s story on YouTube (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Solar Sister Mary from Kumi, Eastern Uganda. Hear Mary’s story on YouTube (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

As you finish reading this blog piece, I ask you to reflect for a minute to be grateful for your reading light, on what it must be for children to be without light and what you can do spread some light as well.

Children use solar light to read in Mityana, Central Uganda (Photo Credit: Solar Sister, 2011)

Children use solar light to read in Mityana, Central Uganda (Photo Credit: Solar Sister, 2011)

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org.

Climate Change, Health and Poverty

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Rainforests trap huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and cutting trees down accelerates the impact of climate change and related health effects. (AP Images)

Rainforests trap huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and cutting trees down accelerates the impact of climate change and related health effects. (AP Images)

Health and climate change are directly related. As the Global Health Council puts it, “A change in the conditions in our ecosystem also leads to changes in our relationship with it. Health impact is one component of this relationship.” Whether the effects are direct, like heat stroke, or indirect, like rising temperatures causing disease carrying vectors to survive at higher elevations and thus infecting even more people, impoverished people are particularly vulnerable.

The organization Health Poverty Action has an entire section devoted to climate change and health, and they discuss how poor people in developing countries are most at risk, “partly because of geography and partly because they lack the resources to adapt quickly to the impacts of climate change.” The site goes on to explain that

As temperatures increase and rainfall patterns change, crop yields are expected to drop significantly in Africa, the Middle East and India, while densely populated coastal areas and small island states will be particularly vulnerable to floods. Increased flooding will spread more water-borne diseases like diarrhea, while droughts will breed insects and rodents affecting food, water supplies and health. With rising temperatures, diseases like malaria, West Nile disease, dengue fever and river blindness will shift to new areas.”

To help combat these issues in Laos, Health Poverty Action is working with local communities to help them develop sustainable livelihoods that will allow them to be more resilient to environmental changes.

For a more in depth look at the relationship between poverty, climate change and health in Pacific Island countries, check out Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service’s paper “Poverty, Climate Change and Health in Pacific Island Countries.”

Climate Change and Children’s Health

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People with a single water source for washing, drinking and sanitation are at risk for health problems. (AP Images)

People with a single water source for washing, drinking and sanitation are at risk for health problems. (AP Images)

The relationship between climate change and health is one that concerns many people, because of the serious negative impacts environmental factors can have on “at risk” populations: children, the elderly, and the impoverished. For more information about current environment-health issues, such as the dangers of pesticides used on crops (which children are especially vulnerable to due to their small size), check out the Health section of the David Suzuki Foundation.

So why are certain populations more vulnerable than others to the negative effects of climate change? For starters, children and the elderly have less strong immune systems than most adults, making them more susceptible to diseases and extreme weather events like heat waves. According to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, children are most vulnerable to climate change, and those in East Asia and the Pacific are most at risk.  According to Geoffrey Keele of UNICEF, “The leading killers of children worldwide are highly sensitive to changes in the climate…For example, higher temperatures have been linked to increased rates of malnutrition, cholera, diarrheal disease and vector-borne diseases like dengue and malaria. Yet children’s underdeveloped immune systems put them at far greater risk of contracting these diseases and succumbing to their complications.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Climate Change and the Health of Children” website explains more about the issues that children face specifically: They provide links to background information on technical environmental and health issues for those who want to learn more.

For potential strategies for preventing these climate-related health problems for children, check out “Global Climate Change and Children’s Health: Threats and Strategies for Prevention” provided by the U.S.’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Environmental Health Perspectives Journal. It explains issues such as children’s susceptibility to excessive heat and provides examples of different climate-sensitive events children are exposed to throughout their lives, and possible effects.

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #1

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In recognition of 2012 as United Nations International Sustainable Energy for All Year, this four part special guest blog series from Solar Sister puts the spotlight on linkages between energy access and health matters that must be part of global conversations.

Neha Misra, Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister (Courtesy Photo)

Neha Misra, Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister (Courtesy Photo)

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister - an innovative social enterprise that is bringing a women run grassroots clean energy revolution to spread light, hope and opportunity in Africa and beyond. Trained as an Energy Economist, Neha is also a poet and says that Solar Sister is poetry in another form really. For how poetic is that – to sprinkle sunshine in people’s lives who, in turn, can pass the baton on to keep the magic alive and make our world a brighter place to live in!

Solar Sister’s Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
Connecting the dots between Global Energy Poverty & Health

There are many things we take for granted in life.

For example, if you are reading this on your bright desktop computer or a laptop or a smart phone, chances are that your day is not absorbed by darkness as soon as the sun sets down.

But it is the case for more than 1.6 billion people – a quarter of humanity which has not seen a single light bulb, for it lives in the heart of darkness as soon as the sun sets down. Can you picture 1.6 billion people living without any light? No nighttime stories read by mothers by bedside reading lights, no brightly lit family dinner tables around which everyone shares stories about their day, no holiday season with bright lights. Instead, there is the health risk due to use of toxic and dangerous    kerosene lanterns and candles used for light.

Woman in Uganda selling roasted corn by the light of her kerosene lamp; Sub-Saharan Africa has over 600 million people without energy access (Photo Courtesy: Solar Sister, 2011)

Woman in Uganda selling roasted corn by the light of her kerosene lamp; (Photo Courtesy: Solar Sister, 2011)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has determined that individuals breathing kerosene fumes and soot inhale the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. This can cause asthma, bronchitis, tuberculosis, heart disease and lung cancer. Every year there are 1.6 million deaths due to indoor air pollution – that is one life lost every 20 seconds. The health of the planet also suffers from green house gas (GHG) emissions and black soot from kerosene lanterns – emitting smoke equivalent to 30 million cars into the atmosphere every single year!

The goods news is that there is light, hope and opportunity in the form of a new kind of clean energy revolution led by Solar Sister, an innovative social enterprise which combines the breakthrough potential of portable solar technology with a woman-driven direct sales network to help displace the use of kerosene and candles.Solar Sister won United Nations Environmental Program’s 2011 SEED Award in recognition of its commitment to build local green economy in Africa.

Solar Sister provides women in Africa with solar ‘business in a bag’: a start-up kit with an inventory of portable solar products, training and marketing support. This includes Solar Sister branded t-shirts, bags and record keeping notebooks. Solar Sister Entrepreneurs use their real world social networks – friends, neighbors, and family, local markets to sell the affordable and high quality solar products to their communities. Besides light, they sell solar cell phone and radio chargers so families and businesses can stay connected. Solar Sister Entrepreneurs earn a commission on each sale they make and their communities have the life transforming clean energy technology at their doorsteps. Since 2010, Solar Sister has trained 132 rural African women as solar change makers bringing light to over 13,000 people.

One Solar Sister at a time - Spreading light, hope and opportunity in Africa. See Solar Sister’s introductory video on YouTube. (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

One Solar Sister at a time - Spreading light, hope and opportunity in Africa. See Solar Sister’s introductory video on YouTube. (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

This access to solar power improves the health and well being of communities both by displacing kerosene use and by improving their connectivity. For example, diabetic patient Mama Norah of Budaali Village in Uganda used to walk for more than two kilometers each way to have her phone charged. On days that she could not charge her phone, she would fear her fate in case of an emergency.

Solar Sister Entrepreneurs sell life transforming portable solar products using their social networks (Photo Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Solar Sister Entrepreneurs sell life transforming portable solar products using their social networks (Photo Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Then one day, Mama Norah bought a solar lamp with a mobile phone charger from a Solar Sister Entrepreneur. She now says, “I no longer have to pay for phone charging, I just put the solar panel on my roof and connect my phone to the lamp and it is charged, it is a miracle that has put my heart to rest.” Solar Sister has not only brought light to Mama Norah, but also connectivity that may save her life one day. Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity.

 

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org

Climate Change and Global Health Research

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Indonesian students protest environmental issues on World Health Day 2008, which focused on health effects of climate change. (AP Images)

Indonesian students protest environmental issues on World Health Day 2008, which focused on health effects of climate change. (AP Images)

Umea University in Sweden has a Climate Change and Health program within the Centre for Global Health Research. The program is “carried out by a core team with both internal collaboration within the centre and other researchers at Umea University as well as with external regional, national and international partners.” The vision of the Climate Change and Health program is to “integrat[e] climate change science and global health” with a mission to “provide reliable information and solutions to policy- and decision-makers preventing harmful impacts due to climate change, and to illustrate health benefits from mitigation strategies.”

This group of international researches focuses on both the indirect and direct impacts of climate change on health, from infectious diseases like malaria and dengue fever, to heat-related health effects. Two of their primary aims are to “link climate model output to disease data, and to trigger policy changes based on recent results from relevant climate health research.” They engage in international events like the Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change’s lead author meeting and UN Conference of Party events such as the recent COP17 in Durban, South Africa in December 2011. Professor Birgitta Evengard gave a presentation as a side event to the COP17 negotiations on “Vulnerable Populations in the Arctic.”

For free publications put out by the research center, click here.

Check out the full website for publications, projects, past and present research data on various aspects of the effects of climate change on human health!

January’s Theme is…Health!

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Climate Change and Health Banner

Climate Change and Health Banner

Health of humans (and animals!) has always been closely linked to the environment. According to the Climate Institute, “Researchers have found that there is a close link between local climate and the occurrence or severity of some diseases and other threats to human health. It is estimated that climate change contributes to 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year, and the World Health Organization estimates that a quarter of the world’s disease burden is due to the contamination of air, water, soil and food.”

Human beings are being impacted by climate change directly through changing weather patterns and indirectly through changes in water, air, food quality and quantity, ecosystems, agriculture, and economy. For example, increases in average temperature may lead to more extreme heat waves during the summer, which is particularly harmful for children and the elderly. Respiratory disorders such as asthma are also expected to increase due to reduced air quality caused by climate-related factors like accelerated trade winds carrying larger quantities of dust clouds from desert.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, extreme temperatures are responsible for loss of life, “while climate-related disturbances in ecological systems, such as changes in the range of infective parasites, can indirectly impact the incidence of serious infectious diseases.”

So what are people doing about these issues? Everyday actions to combat climate change are small steps toward reducing the impact of climate change on our lives and our health. The World Health Organization “has an active and long-standing programme on protecting health from climate change, guided by a World Health Assembly resolution.” One of their main roles is ensuring that health gets proper consideration in large-scale decisions regarding climate change and other environmental initiatives.

Throughout this month, we will discuss ways that climate change affects health, including extreme weather events and diseases, and how organizations and individuals are taking action to combat these issues and improve human health.