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The workshop brought together national and international experts to co-develop strategies addressing the intersection of floods, climate change, and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with a focus on Bihar and Kerala.

The opening session outlined the project's objectives: to assess how floods disrupt NCD care, codesign community-based interventions, integrate flood early warning systems (EWS) with health services, and pilot a cluster randomized controlled trial. Key interventions discussed included flood resilient medicine storage, telemedicine, CHW training, and behaviour change communication.

Technical presentations addressed early warning system modelling, vulnerability mapping, and geospatial integration. Kerala will adopt hydrometeorological models, while Bihar will use historical flood data and AI to predict localized risks and inform PHC preparedness.

Stakeholders highlighted challenges such as poor medicine access, limited community trust, underuse of telehealth, and burden on frontline workers like ASHAs. Participants emphasized leveraging existing systems (e.g., NCD portal, Tele-MANAS), integrating mental health, engaging local self-governments, and building trust with communities.

The sessions also explored how to translate EWS into actionable response, including pre-positioning medicines, strengthening digital tools, involving informal practitioners with safeguards, and training caregivers. The importance of documenting community-level experiences and using accessible communication channels (like WhatsApp voice notes and FM radio) was reiterated.

The day concluded with a call for continued collaboration, community involvement, and evidence generation to strengthen climate-resilient health systems.

In March, the CCDC, working with Mahavir Cancer Sansthan & Research Institute, Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital & Research Centre, and the State Health Society (Bihar), held a two days Theory of Change workshop to co-develop interventions aligned to project goals. The workshop first mapped current NCD care-seeking, practices, and service provision in participating districts, drawing on our recent Bihar findings. It then examined how floods disrupt these pathways and erode preparedness and resilience among patients, communities, and providers. Building on this shared problem analysis, participants outlined the contours of an effective intervention and co-generated ideas and suggestions. The session concluded with a draft logic of change, clarifying priority outcomes, key causal links, and immediate next steps for intervention design and implementation.

A £3 million project led by the University of Birmingham is creating healthcare interventions to protect vulnerable patients in India during seasonal floods. The initiative aims to improve access to care, ensure medication delivery, and enhance flood preparedness for Indian communities with long-term conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

Read the full news article on our website.

Translation: Inspection of a hospital in Minapur, India, by Birmingham team working on a project on "Improving Primary Healthcare in Flood-prone areas.

Inspection of CHC Minapur and APHC Panapur, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India. Headline: "The team from Birmingham, United Kingdom learned about the difficulty during floods."