The health co-benefits and costs of climate adaptation interventions: A rapid scoping review and implications for policy and practice

Background

Climate change is the biggest health threat of the 21st century, with health outcomes worsening across most climate-sensitive health parameters. The World Health Organization’s 2025 Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health calls for health and climate issues to be better integrated in policy development as a matter of priority. Recent research indicates that climate adaptation interventions present an opportunity for substantial returns on investment when health and other outcomes are accounted for. This rapid scoping review explores a subset of the broader peer-reviewed literature assessing health co-benefits and costs of climate adaptation interventions.

Methods

A search of PubMed, Scopus, and MEDLINE was carried out in August 2024 and 286 papers were screened for eligibility. 25 papers were deemed eligible for inclusion and data were extracted across multiple variables, including geographic location of study, reported cost of intervention, health outcomes and reported indicators.

Results

Most of the 25 included papers were review articles and did not quantify or monetize health co-benefits. Only two of the 25 included papers reported the cost of featured climate adaptation interventions. A quarter of the included papers discussed potentially relevant indicators for reporting adaptation health co-benefits. Nature-based solutions and interventions relating to the built environment were the most common sectors covered.

Conclusion

Recognizing the limitations of our findings given the subset of papers included in this scoping review, there appears to be an opportunity within the peer-reviewed literature to quantify the health co-benefits of climate adaptation interventions, report on their costs and benefits, and use standardized intervention typologies or measurement frameworks to assess effectiveness. Beyond the need for a more comprehensive and systematic review, future research must better evaluate the effectiveness and health outcomes of climate adaptation interventions and planning through appropriate study designs to enable evidence-based policy decisions that optimize the benefits of adaptation action.