State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Health47

  • Climate and Public-Health Communities Train Together

    For the third year in a row, public-health professionals and climate scientists from around the world are visiting Columbia University’s Lamont campus, where the International Research Institute for Climate and Society is based, to learn how to use climate information to make better decisions for health-care planning and disease prevention. They’re taking part in the…

  • Pastoralists Thrive in Rural Kenya: Turning Camel’s Milk into Gold

    Pastoralists are people who live mostly in dry, remote areas, whose livelihoods depend on their intimate knowledge of the surrounding ecosystem and on the wellbeing of their livestock (IFAD). Most pastoralists raise livestock and practice animal husbandry consisting usually of camels, goats, cattle, yaks, sheep, horses, llamas, alpacas, reindeer and vicunas. Pastoralists tend to be…

  • Achieving International Health Objectives with New Media and Technology

    As I walk with Community Health Workers in the Millennium Villages throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, I notice the long distances, endless demand for services and the individual hardship they endure to reach every member of the community.  In the past few years, the nature of their work has profoundly changed as cell-phones become a nearly ubiquitous…

  • Making mHealth a Reality

    Last fall, under the direction of Dr. Patricia Mechael at The Earth Institute at Columbia University, our team of mHealth interns conducted a review of evidence-based studies on mobile health, or mHealth.  The product of that work is being released today as part of the mHealth Alliance thought leadership series, and tied to the USAID,…

  • Treating children who suffer from acute malnutrition – one text message at a time

    This article was originally posted on the ChildCount+ blog. ChildCount+ is an mHealth platform aimed at empowering communities to improve child survival and maternal health using mobile technologies. Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) affects 20 million children under five years of age each year and contributes to 1 million child deaths per year. Moderate acute malnutrition…

  • Climate and Meningitis in Africa

    The International Research Institute for Climate and Society and Google are offering a guided tour of Africa to teach you about the relationship between climate and deadly meningitis outbreaks there. No need to pack your bags, though: it’s a virtual tour, one you can run on Google Earth from your living room. The climate and…

  • Getting Back on Track: Ending Global Hunger and Undernutrition

    One of the targets of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to reduce the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half between 1990 and 2015, with hunger measured as the proportion of the population who are undernourished and the prevalence of children under five who are underweight.

  • Study Sees Little Dust Risk For Subway Workers

    Compact Air Samplers Track Pollution in New York Tunnels

  • UNAIDS, Millennium Villages Work to Eliminate Mother-Child HIV Transmission in Africa

    With scale-up to national level, 16,000 infections could be averted

Earth Month Graphic Collage: "Our Power, Our Planet - April 2025"

The first Earth Day in 1970 ignited a movement to stop polluting our planet. This Earth Month, join us in our commitment to realizing a just and sustainable future for our planet. Visit our Earth Day website for ideas, resources, and inspiration.

  • Climate and Public-Health Communities Train Together

    For the third year in a row, public-health professionals and climate scientists from around the world are visiting Columbia University’s Lamont campus, where the International Research Institute for Climate and Society is based, to learn how to use climate information to make better decisions for health-care planning and disease prevention. They’re taking part in the…

  • Pastoralists Thrive in Rural Kenya: Turning Camel’s Milk into Gold

    Pastoralists are people who live mostly in dry, remote areas, whose livelihoods depend on their intimate knowledge of the surrounding ecosystem and on the wellbeing of their livestock (IFAD). Most pastoralists raise livestock and practice animal husbandry consisting usually of camels, goats, cattle, yaks, sheep, horses, llamas, alpacas, reindeer and vicunas. Pastoralists tend to be…

  • Achieving International Health Objectives with New Media and Technology

    As I walk with Community Health Workers in the Millennium Villages throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, I notice the long distances, endless demand for services and the individual hardship they endure to reach every member of the community.  In the past few years, the nature of their work has profoundly changed as cell-phones become a nearly ubiquitous…

  • Making mHealth a Reality

    Last fall, under the direction of Dr. Patricia Mechael at The Earth Institute at Columbia University, our team of mHealth interns conducted a review of evidence-based studies on mobile health, or mHealth.  The product of that work is being released today as part of the mHealth Alliance thought leadership series, and tied to the USAID,…

  • Treating children who suffer from acute malnutrition – one text message at a time

    This article was originally posted on the ChildCount+ blog. ChildCount+ is an mHealth platform aimed at empowering communities to improve child survival and maternal health using mobile technologies. Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) affects 20 million children under five years of age each year and contributes to 1 million child deaths per year. Moderate acute malnutrition…

  • Climate and Meningitis in Africa

    The International Research Institute for Climate and Society and Google are offering a guided tour of Africa to teach you about the relationship between climate and deadly meningitis outbreaks there. No need to pack your bags, though: it’s a virtual tour, one you can run on Google Earth from your living room. The climate and…

  • Getting Back on Track: Ending Global Hunger and Undernutrition

    One of the targets of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to reduce the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half between 1990 and 2015, with hunger measured as the proportion of the population who are undernourished and the prevalence of children under five who are underweight.

  • Study Sees Little Dust Risk For Subway Workers

    Compact Air Samplers Track Pollution in New York Tunnels

  • UNAIDS, Millennium Villages Work to Eliminate Mother-Child HIV Transmission in Africa

    With scale-up to national level, 16,000 infections could be averted