Conference Abstract | Volume 8, Abstract NACNDC/19JASH061 (Poster) | Published: 08 Dec 2025
Didacus Namanya1, Herbert Nabaasa1, Sandra Kyobutungi1, John Bosco Isunju2
1Ministry of Health, Environmental Health Department, Kampala, Uganda, 2Makerere University School of Public Health, Disease Control and Environmental Health Department, Kampala, Uganda
&Corresponding author: Didacus Namanya, Ministry of Health, Environmental Health Department, Kampala, Uganda, Email: didamanya@yahoo.com, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6906-4617
Received: 11 Sep 2025, Accepted: 20 Oct 2025, Published: 08 Dec 2025
Domain: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Keywords: Uganda, climate change, vulnerability and adaptation assessment, health national adaptation plan
©Didacus Namanya et al., Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Didacus Namanya et al., Tackling climate change in Uganda through vulnerability assessment and health adaptation planning to build health system resilience. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2025;8(ConfProc6):061. https://doi.org/10.37432/JIEPH-CONFPRO6-00061
Climate change is a major threat to public health. Uganda is already experiencing climate change characterised by extreme weather events, including heavy rains, windstorms, hailstorms, drought, heat and cold waves. To address this challenge, in 2023, a vulnerability and adaptation assessment (VAA) was conducted. Findings were used to develop a Health National Adaptation Plan (H-NAP 2025 -2030) to enhance Uganda’s health system resilience by ensuring sustainable and continuous healthcare services during climate emergencies. We share key results from the VAA, and the H-NAP priorities.
43 districts were selected purposively in 15 health regions, based on past occurrences of health hazards such as droughts, storms, floods, and extreme temperatures. healthcare facility-based cross-sectional study applying qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. H-NAP development coordinated by MOH and involved a systematic approach: desk review, the VAA, co-development through stakeholder engagements and consultations.
VAA was conducted in 716 selected Health Care Facilities (HCFs), i.e., Health Centre IIs (40.9%), Health Centre IIIs (45.8%), Health Centre IVs (8.7%), and General Hospitals (4.3%). Almost 90.4% of HFs assessed were government-owned, 9.2% were PNFPs, and 0.4% were Private for-profit. Exposure of the HCFs to climate risks: drought 47.6%, floods 39.7%, storms 31.1%, water level rise 12.0%, landslides 11.7%, lightning 8.9%, heat wave 2.0%, and cold waves 0.1%. RRHs have the least exposure to hazards in comparison to lower-level facilities. Lower-level facilities have higher exposure to storms, high water levels, floods, drought and landslides. HCFs lack water management and safety plans to address contamination risks. HCFs do not perform regular assessments of their energy systems to ensure they can cope with climate change events. H-NAP has 10 components originating from the health system building blocks aimed at building resilience.
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