Health Impacts of Climate Change
Potentially hundreds of millions of people globally are facing health issues due to small changes in climate. The frequency and intensity of heat waves and natural hazards such as droughts, floods, and cyclones may increase, causing adverse health effects; and levels of air pollution may increase. Direct impacts of extreme weather events include increased incidence of deaths, physical injuries and psychological stresses, while indirect impacts are related to increased risk of exposure to water-borne diseases due to water contamination, and impacts on malnutrition due to loss in agricultural production. Unsafe water and sanitation conditions and decrease water accessibility would further increase the transmission of infectious diseases. Higher temperatures can lead to increased exposure to food-borne diseases due to contamination of food, which can cause various gastrointestinal diseases.
The important health effects of climate change are
- Weather has a profound effect on human health and well-being. It has been demonstrated that weather is associated with changes in birth rates, and sperm counts, with outbreaks of pneumonia, influenza and bronchitis, and is related to other morbidity effects linked to pollen concentrations and high pollution levels.
- Humidity has an important impact on mortality since it contributes to the body’s ability to cool itself by evaporation of perspiration.
- Large increases in mortality have occurred during previous heat and cold waves.
- Hot weather extremes appear to have a more substantial impact on mortality than cold wave episodes.
- Threshold temperatures for cities, which represent maximum and minimum temperatures associated with increases in total mortality, have been determined
- Precipitation in the form of rainfall and snow is also associated with changes in mortality.
- If future global warming induced by increased concentrations of trace gases does occur, it has the potential to significantly affect human mortality.
Climate change poses major obstacles
Climate change poses major obstacles to progress in meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on health & well-being. There is a clear and present danger that climate change will roll back human development for a large section of humanity, undermining international cooperation that focuses on health, well- being, poverty reduction, food safety and overall quality of life. Due to climate migration, that may lead to reduced access to education opportunities, a loss in labor productivity, and decreasing agricultural productivity may place additional burdens on health. Increased incidence of vector-borne diseases, increases in heat-related mortality, and declining quantity and quality of drinking water will lead to adverse health effects. Climate change is a global phenomenon and calls for a collective response.
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