Participatory development of a disaster preparedness checklist for health systems to address the impacts of extreme weather events: methodology and pilot testing of the tool in four mountainous European areas

This study presents the participatory development and pilot testing of a Disaster Preparedness Checklist for health systems, developed within the Horizon Europe MOUNTADAPT project. The process combined expert and experiential knowledge through five phases over approximately 16 months: problem identification and scope definition, solution design, validation, pilot testing, and evaluation. Health system representatives from four European regions (Tirol, Austria; Grenoble, France; Alba Iulia, Romania; Selnica ob Dravi and Maribor, Slovenia) contributed throughout.

The paper concludes that health systems in mountainous regions face the double burden of heightened exposure to climate-related EWEs and heightened structural vulnerabilities, with a lack of specific and targeted adaptation tools. This paper responded to this gap through the participatory process for developing and testing of a Disaster Preparedness Checklist, demonstrating that participatory methodologies can produce tools that are both contextually grounded and operationally accepted