The Comprehensive Impact of Climate Change on Public Health
By Quang La
Climate change poses a risk to health in the broadest sense, given that it impacts on the physical setting of Earth and both the natural and man-made systems. Thus, the effects of climate change — both immediate and secondary — could impose a hefty toll on public health and potentially set back the considerable development in this sphere in the past few decades.
Direct Health Impacts of Climate Change
The first and perhaps most noticeable way in which climate change impinges directly on health is through mortalities resulting from extreme weather, or severities of normal weather conditions. Climate change is a key emerging risk factor that has been already manifested in more regular and severe heatwaves and wildfires, floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes that can lead to deaths, injuries, and infection rates. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that the average global temperatures are likely to rise by 1. 1 to 6. 4◦C over the next 90 years and the potential effects are expected to result in more than 250000 additional deaths every year related to undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress by the year 2030.
It also impacts climate and weather condition therefore posing threat to basic infrastructures and healthcare is also compromised making it very difficult to provide adequate services and care especially in the more vulnerable world notably those with understaffed and poorly equipped healthcare. Future studies showed that the climate change would lead to direct health costs by the year 2030 to range between $2 billion and $4 billion every year.
Indirect Health Impacts of Climate Change
In correlation with the closely linked issues, Shindell has also discussed other indirect impacts of climate change on people’s health. These include the following: modification of infectious diseases prevalence and distribution, air quality implications, and challenges in food and water accessibility, and effects of the pandemic on mental health.
Spread of Infectious Diseases
The changes in temperature that are caused by climate change may also affect pattern of precipitation, and incidences of extreme events that may impact climate change and may also make it possible for diseases that are transferred by vectors such as malaria, Zika and dengue fever to occur frequently. These diseases may cause more than 700000 deaths in as much as preventive measures are not adopted at the current rate.
Air Quality Impacts
This is because concerning the effect of global warming, it is believed to raise levels of ground level ozone and the particulate matter that are present in outside air. This may raise the chances of getting lung diseases, heart disease and even being prone to early deaths. As with climate change, the quality of the inside air, together with the health of people as they are exposed to mold, allergens, and other contaminated matters, are also expected to undergo deterioration.
Food and Water Security
Meet the challenges of climate change by preventing drastic fluctuations in agriculture, water resources, and ecosystems, which displace food and water sources, resulting in famine, malnutrition, and waterborne illnesses. Currently, global hunger levels are higher than before due to pandemic restrictions and climate change, 770 million people suffered from hunger in 2020, mostly in African and Asia countries. Seasonal climate fluctuation and quality of water can cause water scarcity and contamination that in turn leads to rise of diarrhea and other diseases.
Mental Health Effects
Some of the effects of climate change impacting the human mind include; stress disorders, post-election violence, severe depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder both on individual and group levels that are as a result of either natural disasters or the constant pressures of climate change.
Disproportionate Impacts on Vulnerable Populations
These general effects of climate change are not universal; the lives of different populations are impacted differently. The members of the groups that can be considered as less protected are the inhabitants of color, First Nations peoples, the elderly, and children.
These groups are at greater risk because they often reside in areas with higher levels of transmission, they tend to be older thus experiencing higher levels of pre-existing medical conditions, and, they are more likely to delay accessing healthcare and other necessities. For instance, Black clients and African Americans are at a 34% higher risk of residing in regions with the highest estimated upward trends in childhood asthma associated with climate change.
Some of the specific ways through which climate change is affecting human beings include: The impoverished communities or those at the lower end of the social strata also have little access to the technology and structures that can help them plan for or rebuild after climate-related disasters.
The Need for Urgent and Equitable Action
To avert the most catastrophic health impacts of climate change, the world must limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. However, even 1.5°C of warming is not considered safe, and every additional tenth of a degree will take a serious toll on human health.
Preventing climate change from worsening and its effect to the health of a nation’s populace requires comprehensive and timely intervention steps that are nondiscriminatory and quite sensible. This intends to promote measures that reduces emissions for the maximum health outcome, development of resilient sustainable health structures and protecting the population from impacts.
Furthermore, those most responsible for emissions of greenhouse gases should incur the highest costs of internalization and adaptation implication pegged on climate justice and equity that places value on the lives of the most vulnerable in society.
This article aims to argue that adopting the regenerative, equity-based approach to combat climate change means better protection of public health, prevention of further harm to the most vulnerable populations and building a better future for all.
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