Americas Hub
Americas Hub
Collaboration Strategy
Many countries in the Americas region face environmental changes affecting ecosystems, human mobility, and public health. The Amazon highlights risks to biodiversity, carbon regulation, and dependent communities. Ocean warming impacts coastal regions and marine life, while stronger El Niño events bring droughts and floods. Recurrent wildfires in California show the growing health burden of climate hazards. These trends intersect with major migration corridors from Central to North America that further shape social and political dynamics, including what is currently at play in the United States.
The CliMigHealth Americas Hub is hosted by Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz Rio de Janeiro) and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Its work will focus on environmental monitoring of infectious diseases and heat island effects in major cities on the continent, one health education, sustainable and climate-resilient health systems, and the integration of environmental sustainability into healthcare services. The Hub also aims to strengthen equitable access to healthcare for vulnerable populations in the context of climate change and human mobility.
Right after the UN Climate Summit (COP30) in Belém in November 2025, the hub was officially launched during a two-day seminar at Oswaldo Cruz Rio, in the presence of CliMigHealth’s leadership team. During this exchange, regional priorities and interuniversity research preferences were established, including a working agenda for interregional cooperation within the broader network and a PhD research project on climate-related mental health effects in urban migrant communities in Brasil. Together with the Africa hub, they will engage with the Climade, which Oswaldo Cruz co-founded with Stellenbosch University.
Projects and activities
- Develop a regional strategy in accordance with the outcomes of the latest UN Climate Summit COP30 (hosted in Belém, Brasil).
- Joint Fiocruz – UGent project on social determinants of health (SDH) in the context of climate mobility in Brasil with CIDACS.
- Co-develop educational material and research on environmental sustainability and climate resilience in health systems in Latin America, including resource use, waste management, energy, water, and sustainable procurement.
- Support strategies for health system resilience, addressing how hospitals, primary care, and care networks respond to climate-related events and the needs of vulnerable populations.
- Knowledge translation: developing guidelines, operational tools, and institutional strategies based on research findings.
- Contribute, in collaboration with the network, to the development of technical and strategic inputs to inform health policies in the context of climate change.
- Joint collaboration with the Africa Hub within the Climade Network.
- Develop research projects on blue ocean health in the context of human and animal health.
Aims
- Establish the Americas Hub.
- Align the main outputs with the CliMigHealth Network strategy for 2025-2029 and beyond.
- Convene regional members working on the nexus to produce regionally focused research, public engagement activities, and educational outputs.
- Strengthen the healthcare systems dimension within the Hub, bridging research and practice through collaboration between UFRJ and Fiocruz.
- Build capacity through educational activities on climate, health, and sustainable healthcare systems, with particular attention to equitable access for vulnerable populations.
Collaborators
Dr. Clarice Maria de Araujo Rodrigues – co-lead hub clarice.rodrigues@fiocruz.br
Coordinator of Healthcare at the University Hospital Complex of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, leading institutional strategies on sustainability, climate, and health, with a focus on integrating environmental considerations into healthcare management, services, and professional training. Researcher at the “Sustainable Development, ST&I and the Health Economic-Industrial Complex (CEIS)” network at the Center for Strategic Studies, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz.
Professor Wim Degrave – co-lead hub wim.degrave@fiocruz.br
Senior Researcher at Laboratory for Applied Genomics and Bioinnovations. Oswaldo Cruz Institute, Rio de Janeiro.
Collaborators: The Centre for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS), Professor Marcia Chame – Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) and Polina Koriukina – Ugent
