Dr. Madeleine Thomson’s work on strengthening health systems in low- and middle-income countries represents a cornerstone of global climate health equity efforts. Her approach recognizes that countries with the smallest contributions to greenhouse gas emissions often face the greatest health impacts from climate change while having the least capacity to respond effectively to these challenges.
Thomson’s health system strengthening approach is informed by her extensive field experience in Africa, particularly her early work on the national impregnated bednet programme in The Gambia. This hands-on experience provided her with deep understanding of the practical challenges facing health systems in resource-limited settings, including infrastructure constraints, supply chain difficulties, and limited human resource capacity.
Her approach to health system strengthening emphasizes the critical importance of integrating climate considerations into existing health system functions rather than creating parallel systems for climate health. Thomson advocates for building climate awareness and response capabilities into routine surveillance, disease control, and health service delivery functions.
Thomson’s strategy includes significant focus on capacity building and training for health professionals in low-income countries. Her work emphasizes the need to incorporate climate and environmental disease drivers into epidemiological training, ensuring that local health workers understand how climate conditions affect disease patterns and can use this knowledge effectively in their practice.
Her health system strengthening approach particularly emphasizes the development of early warning systems that can provide valuable lead time for health preparedness in resource-limited settings. Thomson’s work demonstrates how climate forecasting can enable more efficient use of scarce resources by allowing health systems to anticipate and prepare for climate-sensitive disease outbreaks.
Thomson’s approach includes attention to the unique vulnerabilities and strengths of health systems in different low-income country contexts. Her work recognizes that effective health system strengthening must be adapted to local conditions, including existing infrastructure, disease burdens, and available resources.
Through her leadership at Wellcome, Thomson is supporting 24 research teams across 12 countries to develop digital tools for climate health responses. This initiative represents a significant investment in building local research and innovation capacity in regions where climate health impacts are most severe but technical capacity may be limited.
Thomson’s health system strengthening work addresses the critical importance of surveillance system improvements in low-income countries. Her approach includes supporting the development of monitoring capabilities that can detect early signals of changing disease transmission patterns, enabling rapid response to emerging health threats.
Her strategy emphasizes the need for sustainable financing mechanisms to support long-term health system strengthening efforts in low-income countries. Thomson advocates for innovative funding approaches that can provide sustained support for climate health adaptation rather than short-term project-based interventions.
Thomson’s approach includes significant attention to addressing health equity issues within and between countries. Her work recognizes that climate health impacts are not distributed equally, with the most vulnerable populations often bearing disproportionate burdens while having least access to adaptive resources.
Her health system strengthening strategy includes support for South-South collaboration, enabling countries with similar challenges to share experiences, best practices, and innovations. This approach recognizes that solutions developed in one low-income country context may be highly relevant and adaptable to other similar settings.
Thomson’s work addresses the critical importance of community engagement in health system strengthening efforts. Her approach recognizes that sustainable health system improvements require active participation from affected communities, including their involvement in identifying priorities and implementing solutions.
Her strategy includes attention to the broader social determinants of health that affect climate vulnerability in low-income countries. Thomson’s work recognizes that effective health system strengthening must address not only technical capacity but also underlying factors such as poverty, education, and social support systems.
Through her comprehensive approach to health system strengthening, Thomson is helping to build more resilient and equitable health systems that can protect vulnerable populations from climate health threats while contributing to broader sustainable development goals.
Explore Dr. Thomson’s work on health system strengthening at https://wellcome.org/about-us/our-people/staff/madeleine-thomson, https://climatehealth.gwu.edu/climate-and-health-seminar-dr-madeleine-thomson-head-climate-impacts-wellcome-trust, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Madeleine_Thomson/3, and https://iri.columbia.edu/tags/madeleine-thomson/.