Cli­mate Pre­pared­ness in Very Remote Desert Com­mu­ni­ties is a five-year project fund­ed by the Nation­al Health and Med­ical Research Coun­cil (NHM­RC) and led by Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Supriya Math­ew (Remote Health Sys­tems and Cli­mate Change Cen­tre, Men­zies School of Health Research), an envi­ron­men­tal health researcher based in Mpart­nwe (Alice Springs). It builds on her pre­vi­ous work in some of the regions hard­est hit by envi­ron­men­tal change. 

“Much of Australia’s cli­mate health research has focused on urban and tem­per­ate zones,” says Dr Math­ew. ​“But the chal­lenges in desert Aus­tralia are dif­fer­ent – and so are the solu­tions. You can’t just copy and paste.” 

Remote health work­ers are cen­tral to the project, Dr Math­ew says, because of their long-stand­ing rela­tion­ships with com­mu­ni­ty members. 

Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Jamie Ranse, an inves­ti­ga­tor on this project, is a nurse clin­i­cian-aca­d­e­m­ic. He works as an aca­d­e­m­ic at Grif­fith Uni­ver­si­ty on the Gold Coast, and as a locum com­mu­ni­ty nurse in a very remote desert com­mu­ni­ty of South Australia. 

Retain­ing nurs­es in remote areas is impor­tant, says Dr Ranse. ​“There is a large amount of agency or locum nurs­es who prac­tice in very remote desert com­mu­ni­ties. Under­stand­ing health work­force pat­terns, relat­ing to will­ing­ness to work dur­ing extreme weath­er events in remote com­mu­ni­ties, is important. 

“This research may help inform work­force mod­els that pro­vide con­sis­tent staffing to pri­or­i­ty pop­u­la­tions and help retain nurs­es in remote desert communities.” 

Dr Ranse and Dr Math­ew both point to the impor­tance of data col­lec­tion and envi­ron­men­tal monitoring. 

Dr Ranse says, ​“We already know cli­mate affects health – but in remote areas, we don’t have the data. After a bush­fire, flood or extreme weath­er event, we don’t have enough infor­ma­tion about how peo­ple respond, how it affects their health in the long term. In urban areas, we track things like heatre­lat­ed hos­pi­tal admis­sions in real time. That lev­el of data just doesn’t exist out here.”

Envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing is a major gap, Dr Math­ew says. ​“In remote regions, we don’t rou­tine­ly mea­sure air or water qual­i­ty, or track how heat­waves or cold snaps affect tem­per­a­tures inside homes,” she says. ​“In cities, dur­ing a bush­fire, you get real-time air qual­i­ty alerts sent to your phone. That doesn’t hap­pen in remote Aus­tralia. There’s no mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem – and often no mon­i­tor­ing equipment.”

That’s where cit­i­zen sci­ence comes in. 

“If we want bet­ter data, we need to work with local peo­ple. With train­ing, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers can col­lect infor­ma­tion and help build a more com­plete pic­ture of what’s hap­pen­ing – and help devel­op strate­gies on how to bet­ter respond.”

Rather than researchers arriv­ing with their own agen­da, the project will begin by ask­ing each com­mu­ni­ty what mat­ters most to them. 

“It might be water qual­i­ty, or hous­ing, or bush­fire dan­ger,” Dr Math­ew says. 

“Some com­mu­ni­ties might be wor­ried about food secu­ri­ty or soil health. Our job is to lis­ten first, then sup­port peo­ple to col­lect the evi­dence they need to push for change.” 

Dr Math­ew gives the exam­ple of water test­ing: ​“A com­mu­ni­ty wor­ried about water qual­i­ty might learn how to take a sam­ple and send it to us. Lat­er, they might feel con­fi­dent to share that data with a gov­ern­ment agency. That con­fi­dence – to ask ques­tions, to demand answers – that’s a sign of success.”

Already, changes are hap­pen­ing. In ear­li­er projects, some remote area nurs­es said they have adapt­ed the clin­ic open­ing hours to suit the weath­er – open­ing ear­li­er dur­ing sum­mer heat­waves, or lat­er on freez­ing win­ter morn­ings. The change reduces after-hours call­outs and works bet­ter for com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, too. 

Good cli­mate com­mu­ni­ca­tion and health pro­mo­tion has also come through strong­ly in pre­vi­ous focus groups with remote PHC staff.

“Some­times peo­ple won’t drink the water avail­able in a com­mu­ni­ty. That might be a trust issue,” Dr Math­ew says. ​“Maybe key local agen­cies are mon­i­tor­ing it, but they may not be report­ing it back to the com­mu­ni­ty. Or maybe the water is safe but is hard water and has an unpleas­ant taste. The solu­tion could be as sim­ple as fil­ter­ing it and bot­tling it for drink­ing – but you need that con­ver­sa­tion first.”

There’s also grow­ing recog­ni­tion, she says, that West­ern sci­ence and Abo­rig­i­nal people’s knowl­edge need to work hand in hand. 

“A lot of infor­ma­tion is shared. There’s gen­uine effort across the coun­try – peo­ple are real­is­ing it’s not pro­duc­tive to rely only on West­ern sci­ence. As researchers, you’re not there all the time. Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple are. They have deep knowl­edge of place – we have to find ways to use both.” 

For Dr Math­ew, real suc­cess will be when local peo­ple have the tools to inte­grate knowl­edge, and con­fi­dence to lead local cli­mate responses. 

“If peo­ple have the infor­ma­tion, the train­ing, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead – they will,” she says. ​“And when they do, things start to shift.”