As India faces rising temperatures and growing climate-linked health risks, the Healthy India Alliance (HIA/India NCD Alliance) and HRIDAY convened the National Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on Extreme Heat and its Impacts on Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Diseases (CKMDs) in India at The Park Hotel, New Delhi on 7 August 2026. The consultation brought together heat and public health experts, researchers, clinicians, policymakers, development partners, technical agencies, professional associations, civil society organisations and lived experience champions.

The consultation aimed to build a shared understanding of how extreme heat affects cardiovascular, kidney and metabolic health and what this means for integrated, climate-resilient and people-centred health systems; to synthesise evidence, implementation experience and priorities emerging from the sub-national level; and to translate state priorities into national policy, programme and systems-level action on prevention, preparedness and response.

Sessions covered national leadership on climate and health, forecasting and early warning systems, and lessons from state-level consultations in Gujarat and Maharashtra to National level Consultation in Delhi. A panel on building integrated and climate-resilient health systems through multi-stakeholder action was followed by thematic group work across three priority areas: integrated health systems and clinical preparedness for heat-related CKMDs; surveillance, early warnings, research and evidence for heat-related CKMDs and mental health; and multi-sectoral governance, community resilience and partnerships.

Lived experience champions were central to the discussion, reinforcing that climate-resilient health systems must be built around the people most affected. The consultation produced consensus on national priorities, recommendations for embedding CKMDs within Heat Action Plans, surveillance systems and governance mechanisms, and a strategic roadmap for coordinated national and state-level action.