The Frontline Scorecard : An Assessment Tool for Climate and Disaster Risk Management in Health Systems

Health care systems are at the frontline of delivering critical care during emergencies, mitigating illnesses and deaths. Yet many countries struggle to meet even routine demands for health care. Climate change, disasters, pandemics, and demographic changes are bound to increase pressures on already strained health systems (Rentschler and others 2021). Preparing and equipping health systems to adequately respond to crises are vital to ensure sustained access to health services and to provide reliable essential health care that protects people's well-being. Having a robust assessment of their country's health system's climate and disaster risk management (CDRM) capabilities allows policy makers to make these systems more resilient against shocks. This policy note introduces the Frontline Scorecard, a new rapid diagnostic tool that decision makers can use to conduct a high-level assessment of the CDRM capabilities of their health system, and illustrates its application in a case-study country, Belize