‘ÇİSİP’ – a joint project on health collaboration on climate change and environment in Turkey

Since 2020, HEAL, together with HASUDER – the Association Of Public Health Specialists and Kocaeli University,  Department of Public Health, has been coordinating the “Health Collaboration on Climate Change and Environment Project” (Turkish abbreviation ‘ÇİSİP’), a three year project funded by the European Union.

The aim of the project is to build the capacity of the Turkish health sector on the latest environment, climate and health science and facilitate organisational and individual engagement in relevant policy deliberations. In addition, we want to establish a greater exchange between Turkish health and EU civil society representatives.

The CISIP network currently brings together around 50 members – individual experts as well as representatives from organisations, including Turkish Thoracic Society, Turkish Medical Association, Association of Public Health Nurses, Namik Kemal University, Kocaeli University, Hacettepe University, Marmara University, and various health backgrounds including public health, veterinarians, medical biology.

For the working together under CISIP, four working groups have been established, with a focus on climate change & health; air pollution & health; health Impact Assessment (HIA), and agriculture. More information on these working groups can be found here. The exchanges in these working groups feed into several of CISIP’s activities.

The past two years have seen an impressive set of achievements, including trainings, webinars, briefings and advocacy activities. 

Briefings in Turkish and English include One Health,  COP26, Heatwaves, and Air Pollution. More briefings will be released in 2023.

Webinars brought together Turkish health stakeholders with European experts to discuss pressing topics on environment, climate and health. The recordings of all webinars are available on YouTube for everyone to watch in English and Turkish. They include:

• Climate Change and COVID-19 Pandemic in the frame of One Health Approach
• Heat Waves & Public Health in Turkey
• Heatwaves, Water and Cities
• A Green Deal for Turkey to Tackle Climate Change and its Health Impacts,
• the Health Sector’s readiness for Climate Change, 
• Pesticides and Food Security, 
• the Role of the Health Sector in Mitigating the Health Impacts of Climate Change, 
• and the Health Effects of Fossil Fuels.

In addition, HEAL, HASUDER and Kocaeli University also organised a series of trainings on tools to estimate the health impacts of air pollution, and on Health Impact Assessment (HIA). 

Participants of the CISIP network shared their recommendations on climate, environment and health with Turkish decision-makers for key deliberations on climate change (ahead of Turkey’s ratification of the Paris Agreement and deliberations on a Climate Law), and for clean air efforts. 

In 2023, the project participants will again be very active in order to raise awareness on what could be done in Turkey, in order to strengthen health protection in view of climate change and environmental threats.