Environmental factors driven by climate change, pollution, and ecosystem degradation are increasingly linked to critical public health challenges, such as cerebrovascular diseases. Extreme weather events like heatwaves and flooding significantly affect perinatal health outcomes, contributing to preterm births and low birth weights. These emerging risks highlight the pressing need for targeted public health interventions in historically underserved areas.

Climate change represents the most urgent public health challenge of the 21st century. Scalable and innovative solutions are essential to address the complex interplay of climate-health interactions and to equip the health workforce to manage this increasing complexity while delivering climate-resilient care. Generative AI holds transformative potential in this context, enabling advanced anticipatory care pathways, real-time climate-health insights, and equitable access to healthcare. Emerging tools, such as predictive digital biomarkers and AI-powered medical scribes, demonstrate generative AI’s ability to bridge care gaps, support underserved populations, and enhance healthcare delivery.

The IEEE IC24-015 program emphasizes demonstrable use cases that showcase the power of generative AI in enabling rapid prototyping of scalable, patient-centered solutions for climate resilience while improving public health evidence quality. Integrating telehealth technologies that provide real-time localized data plays a critical role in transitioning healthcare from traditional models to community-based, participatory care systems. However, achieving meaningful impact requires robust, representative data and equitable digital access to ensure inclusive participation.

By fostering collaboration and setting ethical frameworks aligned with regulatory and technical standards, the program supports scalable and sustainable adoption pathways for generative AI and telehealth technologies. This approach aims to deliver equitable, climate-resilient healthcare systems that meet the demands of a rapidly changing world.

This program harnesses Generative AI to address critical challenges in public health and build sustainable, climate-resilient health systems, with a focus on equity and inclusivity. The program focuses on the following thematic areas:

1. Advancing Collaboration and Standards: By fostering collaboration and presenting use cases, the program drives the creation of ethical frameworks and global standards to guide healthcare innovation responsibly.
2. Revolutionizing Healthcare with Generative AI: Generative AI enables rapid evidence generation and innovation through techniques like zero-shot learning, few-shot learning, and fine-tuning, paving the way for adaptive and impactful solutions.
3. Connecting Research to Practice: The program bridges the gap between AI advancements, such as LLMs, and healthcare applications by engaging clinicians and patients to ensure practical, user-driven implementations.
4. Encouraging Participation to Shape Innovation: Membership invites diverse stakeholders to showcase use cases, influence regulatory pathways, and develop standards, collectively transforming healthcare into a resilient and inclusive ecosystem.

The IC program aims to showcase pioneering AI applications, adapted to address the climate-health context, including:

• Digital biomarkers and endpoints: For example, the Google HeAR project—a foundation model diagnosing TB and other respiratory diseases using sound analysis, which can be applied to monitor respiratory conditions exacerbated by climate-related factors like air pollution.
• Consensus LLMs: Such as digital tumor boards that enhance multidisciplinary care, enabling more coordinated responses to climate-driven health disparities in oncology.
• AI medical scribes: Streamlining clinical workflows and reducing administrative burdens to improve care delivery during extreme weather events and other climate-related crises.
• Addressing critical healthcare needs: Solutions that empower underserved populations and bolster climate-health resilience by improving access to care in regions disproportionately affected by climate change.