The Implementing Adaptation project produced an extensive review of relevant literature on the impacts of climate change on the primary health and community services sector. The review found that the impacts of climate change for primary health care and community welfare sectors will mainly be the consequence of the interaction between human systems (including health and social support systems), the changing global climate, and other natural systems. This is because health and wellbeing is strongly dependent on socio-economic drivers, such as income, housing, employment, education, gender and lifestyle – elements that are themselves vulnerable to climate change.

This document has been obtained from the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research (VCCCAR) online knowledge hub hosted by the University of Melbourne and has been listed in the Virtual Hub for Climate Change Innovation with the permission of the Climate Change Programs division of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) and Professor Rod Keenan, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne. The VCCCAR program funded by the Victorian Government via the then Department of Environment and Primary Industries (later changed to DELWP), ceased activity in June 2014.