Reflections of the forum from Esther Achieng Onyango, PhD Candidate, School of Environment, Centre for Environment and Population Health. Esther is working on research under the direction of Professor Cordia Chu in the Griffith School of Environment.
Davos, Switzerland
Amidst the green lush hills, snow-capped alps, the beautiful scenery and the small town hospitality of Davos, Switzerland over 200 experts, researchers, practitioners and policymakers from all over the world gathered for the 3rd GRF One Health Summit; A 3-day event addressing multi-disciplinary, cross-sectoral and integrative approaches in managing health risks at the interface of human, animal and environmental health within the context of the just released 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
I was honoured to have an opportunity to present my work on the impact of climate change on malaria in vulnerable communities in Kenya. My work, which is multi-disciplinary and utilises systems thinking, fit in well with the summit theme, particularly in light of the importance placed on Sustainable Development Goal No. 13, which is to taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Within this context my oral presentation on the development of an integrated assessment framework for climate change and malaria was very well received and was hailed as “outstanding.” I received a lot of positive interest and comments following the presentations and quite a number of people expressed interest in the final outcomes of my thesis.
Overall, the conference was a very engaging and fruitful experience for me and I am grateful to have had this opportunity to showcase my work to such a diverse, international audience. I would like to thank the Griffith Asia Institute, Environmental Futures Institute and School of Environment for supporting my participation at this summit through generous travel grants.
Esther Achieng Onyango is a Doctoral Researcher with an interest in using ecosystem or one health approaches to explore issues of climate change and health impacts. Specific interests include climate change and health vulnerability assessments, multi-stakeholder engagements and translational research. Esther is a Biologist by training (Bsc, Msc. Biological Sciences); has previously worked as a research microbiologist in the USA and has also been involved in conducting in climate change impact assessments in East Africa.
