Foundation & NGO Partnership

Bayer Foundation × ISC × PICA Health — Case Study

A climate-resilient health programme expanding from selected trainees to full coverage of local primary-care teams.

Upgraded: August 2026 ｜ Miaozhen, Chongming Island, Shanghai ｜ 40 primary-care physicians serving 40,000 residents

The Challenge

2025 set China's modern heat record — an average of 16.5 extreme-heat days nationwide, the most since 1961. In the fields, the risk lands on outdoor agricultural workers: older farmers, women, and people with hypertension or heart disease, who face heatstroke, dehydration and collapse during farm work. China's village clinics, despite their reach, largely lack dedicated protocols, equipment and supplies for climate-induced emergencies.

What We Did

Initiated jointly by the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), Bayer China and PICA Health, the pilot builds a "climate-adaptive" health protection net in rural China — starting where the risk is highest.

Curriculum: China's first practical training curriculum on field heatstroke, dehydration and acute climate-related illness, developed by an interdisciplinary team of emergency-medicine, public-health and climate experts.
Digital delivery: Short-video and interactive-case training pushed to pilot-region physicians through our platform — low cost, high coverage, learn-anywhere.
Community demonstration sites: Five rural clinics across Shanghai and Guangdong serve as first-line hubs, each equipped with cooling equipment and first-aid supplies, with a locally adapted heat-emergency response plan.
Training model: The first phase selected one to three doctors per community, supported by community volunteers and resident first-aid sessions. In August 2026, the model expanded to every community physician and every village doctor across the participating site's affiliated clinics.

On the ground

The first pilot went live in Fengxian District, Shanghai. On 9 July 2026, the opening session trained community physicians and volunteers in heat-illness recognition, on-site cooling and referral criteria — then moved to the fields for live drills: patient assessment, emergency cooling, CPR, AED use and wound care, practised in a working farm setting. The afternoon session brought prevention and first-response skills to 50 villagers.

August 2026 — from selected trainees to full coverage

In August 2026, PICA Health significantly expanded the Climate-Resilient Healthy Communities programme. The original model selected one to three doctors from each community. The upgraded model trains every physician in the participating community and every village doctor across its affiliated clinics.

Miaozhen Community on Chongming Island — Shanghai's most remote island — shows the scale of the change. Its 40 primary-care physicians serve and manage care for 40,000 residents. By covering the full local primary-care workforce in one coordinated programme, the upgrade extends heatstroke prevention, treatment and emergency-response capacity across the entire community.

Community physicians and programme partners gathered after the Miaozhen training — Community physicians and programme partners after the Miaozhen training

A full-room climate-health training session in Miaozhen — A full-room training session in Miaozhen

Residents attending the community heat-health session — Residents attending the heat-health session

Residents listening during the community training — Community participation throughout the session

Local clinicians leading a surgical first-aid demonstration — A surgical first-aid demonstration led by local clinicians

A first-aid demonstration for residents at the Miaozhen session — First-aid skills demonstrated for residents

A participant practising CPR on a training mannequin — Hands-on CPR practice

A participant practising CPR beside an AED training kit — CPR and AED practice

Participants working together through printed training materials — Participants work through the training materials

Programme team members reviewing the session plan around a table — The programme team reviews the session plan

Two programme team members debriefing after the session — A post-session team debrief

Fields in the rural community served by the Miaozhen programme — The rural landscape served by the programme

The community training session in progress from the side of the room — The community session in progress

Programme partners walking together at the Miaozhen site — Programme partners on site in Miaozhen

Members of the programme delivery team standing beneath the training banner — The programme delivery team

Community participants and programme partners gathered beneath the training banner — Community participants and programme partners

The full Miaozhen training cohort gathered for a group photograph — The full Miaozhen training cohort

Programme partners placing their hands together at the close of the day — Programme partners close the day together

Results

In August 2026, Miaozhen became an expanded-coverage site: all 40 primary-care physicians serving and managing care for 40,000 residents were included in the programme.
The operating model now covers all community physicians and affiliated village doctors, replacing the original one-to-three-doctor selection model.
The one-year first phase started in June 2026; the programme continues to track physicians and volunteers trained, emergency cases managed, and farm households covered.
Long-term goal: a climate-adaptive physician network reaching at least 100,000 farmers, with lessons designed for replication — and for presentation at international forums including the World Health Assembly and COP31.

Partner Voice

"Grassroots doctors are the most resilient gatekeepers in a changing climate. Through this partnership, we want to validate a rural climate-health model that can be replicated and scaled." — Dr. Zhong Peng, Head of Bayer Foundation, Asia-Pacific

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