Health Impact of Climate Change

Mack, A., Choffnes, E. R., Hamburg, M. A., & Relman, D. A. (Eds.). (2008). Global climate change and extreme weather events: Understanding the contributions to infectious disease emergence: Workshop summary. National Academies Press.

From the Summary:

Humans have long recognized that climatic conditions influence the appearance and spread of epidemic diseases (NRC, 2001). Hippocrates’ observations  of seasonal illnesses, in the fifth century B.C.E., formed the basis for his treatise on epidemics. Hippocratic medicine, which attempted to predict the course and outcome of an illness according to its symptoms, also considered winds, waters, and seasons as diagnostic factors. Ancient notions about the effects of weather and climate on disease remain in the medical and colloquial lexicon, in terms  such as “cold” for rhinovirus infections; “malaria,” derived from the Latin for “bad air”; and the common complaint of feeling “under the weather.”

Today, evidence that the Earth’s climate is changing (IPCC, 2007b) is leading  researchers to view the long-standing relationships between climate and disease from a global perspective. Increased atmospheric and surface temperatures are already contributing to the worldwide burden of disease and premature deaths, and are anticipated to influence the transmission dynamics and geographic distribution of malaria, dengue fever, tick-borne diseases, and diarrheal diseases such as cholera (IPCC, 2007a). Global warming is also accelerating the worldwide hydrological cycle, increasing the intensity, frequency, and duration of droughts; heavy precipitation events; and flooding (IPCC, 2007a). Such extreme weather events have been increasing (IPCC, 2007a) and have been linked to global warming (Hoyos et al., 2006). These weather events may, in turn, contribute to and increase the risk for a wide range of vector- and non-vector-borne diseases in humans, plants, and animals (IPCC, 2007b).

The projected health consequences of future climate change and extreme weather events are predominantly negative. The most severe impacts are expected  to occur in low-income countries where adaptive capacity is weakest. Developed countries are also vulnerable to the health effects of weather extremes, as was demonstrated in 2003 when tens of thousands of Europeans died as a result of record-setting summer heat waves (Kovats and Haines, 2005). Climate change is expected to reinforce additional contributors to infectious disease emergence including global trade and transportation, land use, and human migration (IOM, 2003).

The Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) held  a public workshop in Washington, DC, on December 4 and 5, 2007, to explor the anticipated direct and indirect effects of global climate change and extreme weather events on infectious diseases of humans, animals, and plants and the implications of these health impacts for global and national security. Through invited presentations and discussions, invited speakers considered a range of  topics related to climate change and infectious diseases, including the ecological and environmental contexts of climate and infectious diseases; direct and indirect  influences of extreme weather events and climate change on infectious diseases; environmental trends and their influence on the transmission and geographic range of vector- and non-vector-borne infectious diseases; opportunities and challenges for the surveillance, prediction, and early detection of climate-related outbreaks of infectious diseases; and the international policy implications of the potentially far reaching impacts of climate change on infectious disease.