Integrating Community Detection and Primary Care Response to address Heat-Related Health Risks among Women and Adolescent Girls in Rural Wardha, Maharashtra

A three-year research project of CEHAT, supported by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), in collaboration with the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS), Sewagram. The project aims to understand heat-related health risks among women and adolescent girls in rural Wardha, Maharashtra, and strengthen community-level identification and primary healthcare responses to these risks.

The project will assess patterns of heat exposure among women and adolescent girls using meteorological information alongside individual-level information on heat exposure, work patterns and heat-related symptoms. It will also examine how gender and other contextual factors shape exposure to heat and related health risks.

The project will work with ASHAs and Primary Health Centres (PHCs) to strengthen the identification, assessment and referral of heat-related health concerns among women and adolescent girls. ASHAs will be supported to identify symptoms and health concerns potentially related to heat exposure during routine community health contacts, with appropriate linkages to primary healthcare services.
The study will be conducted in rural communities within the MGIMS field-practice area in Wardha, with the RHTC catchments providing the field-practice and community engagement platform. The project will engage with ASHAs, primary healthcare providers, and health-system and community stakeholders to assess the feasibility of integrating heat-health risk identification and response within existing primary healthcare services.

Through this work, CEHAT and MGIMS aim to generate evidence on the gendered dimensions of heat and health and contribute to feasible approaches for strengthening community and primary healthcare responses to heat-related health risks among women and adolescent girls.