Only 23% of Health Ministries Integrate Weather Data Into Surveillance, WRI Highlights

A supply-and-demand mismatch

As El Niño and record ocean warmth dominate the September 2026 agenda, a structural gap in climate-health governance has drawn renewed attention. World Resources Institute, drawing on WMO's State of Climate Services for Health report and its own May 2026 economic analysis, notes that 81% of WMO members provide climate and weather information to the health sector — yet only 23% of surveyed member states integrate meteorological information into health surveillance systems.

The figure comes from WHO Health and Climate Change Global Survey data cited in WMO's 2023 climate services report: just 23% of ministries of health operate surveillance platforms that use meteorological information to monitor climate-sensitive health risks such as heat illness, vector-borne disease and water-borne outbreaks.

WRI frames the gap as a failure of uptake rather than supply. National meteorological and hydrological services largely produce the data; ministries of health often lack the funding, technical partnerships or institutional mandates to embed it in the systems that trigger public health action.

Why surveillance integration matters

Health surveillance systems collect observations and trends on disease incidence, health outcomes and service delivery. Integrating climate information allows analysts to detect shifts in risk before hospitals fill — linking, for example, rising temperatures to heatstroke admissions or seasonal rainfall anomalies to malaria case counts.

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo has called the 23% figure evidence of a gap that is "too big," noting separately that only 26 ministries of health report to WHO that they have a heat-health warning system — despite evidence that such systems can save tens of thousands of lives annually when the public receives timely guidance.

WRI's May 2026 report argues that closing the integration gap is among the most cost-effective climate adaptations available, with modelled returns of US$3.60 to US$68.40 per dollar invested in climate services for health.

Barriers to joint working

Several barriers block progress. Health and meteorological agencies sit in separate ministries with separate budgets; collaborative planning is often the hardest activity to fund. There is limited understanding among finance officials of what climate services for health include, which depresses appropriations even when weather agencies are willing partners.

Data-sharing agreements, privacy rules for health records and differing technical formats add friction. WRI notes that activities requiring cross-agency collaboration — joint vulnerability mapping, climate-informed disease modelling — remain at an early stage in many low- and middle-income countries precisely because they fall between institutional stools.

Momentum amid the El Niño emergency

Political momentum is nonetheless growing. Climate-informed surveillance is a priority under the Belém Health Action Plan launched at COP30, and WMO members endorsed a ten-year plan in 2023 to work more closely with WHO on operational services for extreme heat, infectious disease risks and nutritional insecurity.

September's El Niño warnings make the integration deficit concrete: seasonal forecasts are only as protective as the health systems that can act on them. WRI's message, reinforced by the 23% statistic, is that investing in the link between weather data and health surveillance is not ancillary to climate adaptation — it is where early warnings become saved lives.