Tackling Global Warming Will Improve Health, Save Lives, and Save Money

A very recent study released in JAMA (Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities for Global Health) provides a very thorough review showing how climate change affects human health.  Perhaps more importantly, the paper also describes how tackling climate change leads to many health and economic benefits.

Authors Jonathan Patz, Howard Frumkin and colleagues combined a survey of the current literature with measured and projected changes to climate to assess health risks associated with climate change.  They report many things that we already know.  For instance, some of the adverse health effects from climate change are heat-related (such as heat stress, increased cardiac arrests, reductions in work productivity, to name a few).

Others, such as decreased respiratory health (from changes to ground level pollution associated with climate change or increases in pollens for example), increases in infectious diseases, decreased food security, and more mental stress are just some of the lesser reported effects we are seeing and will continue to see.  The authors conclude,

Evidence over the past 20 years indicates that climate change can be associated with adverse health outcomes.  Health care professionals have an important role in understanding and communicating the related potential health concerns and the co-benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Tackling Global Warming Will Improve Health, Save Lives, and  Save Money