Rita Issa, MD, MPH, MRCGP

Dr. Rita Issa is a primary care physician and planetary health practitioner, currently exploring themes of loss and hope in the contexts of climate change and environmental degradation. She holds concurrent positions in the World Health Organization’s Climate Change and Health Unit, as an interdisciplinary scholar on the “Critical Decade for Climate Change” programme at the Tyndall Centre (UK), and as co-convener of Planet.Health, an imagination lab to unlock flourishing planetary futures through creative cross-pollination.

She has previously worked at the intersections of climate change, migration, and health with Médecins Sans Frontières, WHO, Primary Care International, Lancet Migration, and aboard Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise. She is co-editor of the BMJ Book of the Year-winning Handbook of Refugee Health (Taylor & Francis), and the forthcoming Resistance, Activism and Health (Oxford University Press).

A long-time community organiser and media spokesperson, Rita was named London’s “Public Sector Changemaker of the Year” in 2022 and currently serves on the advisory board of the Global Community Organizing and Advocacy for Climate Health (Global COACH) Fellowship.