Scientists have long recognized the need to plan for climate change adaptation, but the implementation of plans has been slowed by a range of obstacles.
Under the Obama administration's Executive Order 13514 (PDF), U.S. federal agencies were required in 2012, for the first time, to produce plans for climate change adaptation. A recent review of these plans by the U.S. Global Change Research Program Adaptation Science Interagency Workgroup identified the most common and specific research and information needs related to eight core themes, including human health. Twenty-two out of 27 plans called for a better understanding of human-health vulnerabilities and effective risk reduction practices. Common concerns focused on heat stress and hazards related to extreme weather events. Also highlighted were concerns about climate change impacts on respiratory health and the distribution of infectious diseases.
Despite increasing interest and investments in climate adaptation science, however, the implementation of adaptation plans through institutional policies or other actions designed to reduce health vulnerabilities has been slow. In a departure from typical assessments of why adaptation plans are not implemented due to societal or contextual constraints, a recent study by Benjamin Preston and colleagues suggests that institutionalized assumptions are an important roadblock. Initially developed to distill adaptation knowledge into general principles, these ingrained assumptions can function as potential cognitive biases if left unchallenged.
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