# Presentation: 108586

## Climate Change and Health

**Climate Change and Health**
**Sharon H. Hrynkow, Ph.D.**
**Associate Director**
**National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences**
**National Institutes of Health**
**May 30, 2008**

**Notes:**
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## What is Weather? What is Climate?  

-  Weather – state of atmosphere – wind, temperature, clouds, moisture, air pressure.
- Climate --  average weather conditions at a particular place over a long period of time.
-  Climate change is any long-term significant alteration in the weather patterns.

**What is Weather? What is Climate?****  **

## Observations

- Predictive modeling

**How do we know that the earth is warming?  **

##  Arctic summer sea ice is melting at a significantly faster rate than projected.

** **Arctic summer sea ice is melting at a significantly faster rate than projected.
- The IPCC estimated that the Arctic could be free of summer sea ice somewhere between 2050 and 2100.** **

**Aerial View of Arctic Sea Ice**

##      HEALTH  EFFECTS  OF  CLIMATE  CHANGE

**CLIMATE **
**CHANGE**

***Temperature Rise ***1
***Sea level Rise ***2
***Hydrologic Extremes***

**Urban Heat Island Effect**
**Air Pollution & Aeroallergens**
**Vector-borne Diseases**
**Water-borne Diseases**
**Water resources & food supply**
**Mental Health &**
**Environmental Refugees**

- Heat Stress
- Cardiorespiratory failure
- Respiratory diseases, e.g., COPD & Asthma
- Malaria
- Dengue
- Encephalitis
- Hantavirus
- Rift Valley Fever
- Cholera
- Cyclospora
- Cryptosporidiosis
- Campylobacter
- Leptospirosis
- Malnutrition
- Diarrhea
- Toxic Red Tides
- Forced Migration
- Overcrowding
- Infectious diseases
- Human Conflicts

- 1    **3°C **by yr. 2100
- 2    **40 cm**   “  “
- IPCC estimates

*Patz,   1998*

**     ****HEALTH  EFFECTS  OF  CLIMATE  CHANGE**

## Extreme Weather Events

**Extreme Weather Events**
**Example:  2003 EUROPEAN HEAT WAVE **

- One of the hottest summers on record in Europe.
- 35,000 people died as a result of the heat wave.
-  Night-time temperatures did not fall.
- Climate scientists predict that heat waves will be longer, more severe, and twice as frequent.

## Comparing the 2003 Heatwave to past summer climate 

- European heat wave of 2003, from Schär et al., 2004

## Sea Level Rise and Poor Health Outcomes 

**Sea Level Rise and Poor Health Outcomes **

** ****A 1-meter rise in sea level would create millions of refugees. In Bangladesh alone, tens of millions of people would be displaced.**
**New breeding grounds for cholera and other pathogens. **
** ****Loss of infrastructure: roads, hospitals, agriculture, clean water, sanitation...**

##      HEALTH  EFFECTS  OF  CLIMATE  CHANGE

**CLIMATE **
**CHANGE**

***Temperature Rise ***1
***Sea level Rise ***2
***Hydrologic Extremes***

**Urban Heat Island Effect**
**Air Pollution & Aeroallergens**
**Vector-borne Diseases**
**Water-borne Diseases**
**Water resources & food supply**
**Mental Health &**
**Environmental Refugees**

- Heat Stress
- Cardiorespiratory failure
- Respiratory diseases, e.g., COPD & Asthma
- Malaria
- Dengue
- Encephalitis
- Hantavirus
- Rift Valley Fever
- Cholera
- Cyclospora
- Cryptosporidiosis
- Campylobacter
- Leptospirosis
- Malnutrition
- Diarrhea
- Toxic Red Tides
- Forced Migration
- Overcrowding
- Infectious diseases
- Human Conflicts

- 1    **3°C **by yr. 2100
- 2    **40 cm**   “  “
- IPCC estimates

*Patz,   1998*

**     ****HEALTH  EFFECTS  OF  CLIMATE  CHANGE**

## What about Forest Fires?

**What about Forest Fires?**

- Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns  --  longer and more severe fire seasons**.**
- Atmospheric haze creates  health problems, including worsening asthma; and causes flight cancellations, airport and school closures, among other challenges.
- Wildlife habitats and wildlife displacement.

## Spread of infectious agents: Malaria

-   Malaria, caused by a parasite carried by a mosquito, kills nearly 2 million people each year.
-  Warming of the planet thought to be associated with malaria found at higher altitudes, contributing to increasing incidence of disease.
- Standing water, residual from floods and other extreme weather events, fertile breeding ground for malaria vectors.

**Spread of infectious agents: Malaria**

##  Food insecurity – malnutrition

-  Food insecurity – malnutrition
- UV radiation, ozone hole
- Conflict
- Mental health implications

## Who are most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change?  

**Who are most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change?  **

-  Children.  WHO projects that children will bear the greatest burden (malaria, malnutrition, trauma in acute situations, diarrheal disease).
- Elderly.
- Indigenous people.
- Those on the margins of society  -- including poor, disenfranchised.

## How can health research help?  

**How can health research help?  **

- Knowledge about normal development and function and abnormal or disease states (respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, mental illness) AND how risk factors are involved in the establishment and progression of disease
- Fostering understanding of how humans and ecosystems interact.
- Informs policies aimed at protecting and improving health – evidence-based decisionmaking
- Development and implementation of prevention and treatment strategies.  Prediction and prevention of ill health is the goal.

## What can you do?

**What can you do?**

- Understand the links between climate change and health.
- ----Ask questions about energy sources and how energy production, development, distribution and use (combustion) impacts human health.
- Think about sustainable technologies and impacts on the environment of individual and collective decisions.

## IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/)

**IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (****http://www.ipcc.ch/)**
**WHO - World Health Organization (****http://www.who.int/en/)**
**The National Academies: Advisers to the Nation on Science  (****http://www.nationalacademies.org/)**
**NIEHS - **_[http://www.niehs.nih.gov](http://www.niehs.nih.gov/)_
**Framing the NIEHS Agenda on Climate Change – Meeting Report (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/od/associate/docs/framingreport.pdf)**

**Learn more!    References**