Climate Change And Health Research Paper

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This research paper outlines the potential impacts on human health of climate change due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere. It describes the range of potential mechanisms by which health could be affected and the difficulties of estimating the magnitude of such effects. It concludes with a brief discussion of how, not withstanding the need to prevent climate change as far as possible, humankind will have to adapt to changing climate if the adverse effects are to be minimized.

1. Background

1.1 Climate Change

Human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, but also changes in land use, are leading to the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the earth’s atmosphere. The resulting increase in ‘radiative forcing’ is leading to warming of the earth’s surface. The United Nations set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—a multidisciplinary body of scientific advisers, which in its third assessment report forecast an increase in the average global temperature of 1 4–5 8 C between 1990 and 2100 (IPCC 2001). There are a number of sources of uncertainty in projections of future climate, including changes in greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations, the sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gases, and the impact of modulating processes, such as the short-term cooling effects of aerosols as a result of industrial emissions. However, it does appear likely that the rate of climate change over the twenty-first century will be far greater than any natural changes in world climate over the past 10,000 years. There has been substantial warming since 1856, when records began, with particularly rapid increases in temperatures since about 1980. The warmest year on record was 1998, partly as a result of the marked El Nino which occurred over 1997–8. In its second assessment report the IPCC concluded that the balance of evidence suggested that the impact of human activities on global climate was now discernible (IPCC 1996). The subsequent IPCC report pointed to ‘new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 30 years was attributable to human activities.’

1.2 Other Global Environmental Changes

Climate change is not occurring in isolation and there are a range of other global changes—stratospheric ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, changes in land use patterns and depletion of aquifers, all of which may also have effects on human health and society. There are linkages between climate change and some of these other phenomena, for example, the rise in the temperature of the lower atmosphere may increase stratospheric ozone depletion. Deforestation leads to loss of biodiversity, particularly when it involves tropical forests, and also results in a release of substantial amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Population growth in developing countries and unsustainable patterns of consumption in industrialized nations are increasing the strain on earth’s life support systems and the demand for energy (McMichael and Powles 1999).

2. Potential Impacts On Health

2.1 Range Of Effects

Climate change is likely to have substantial effects on human health through a range of pathways (McMichael and Haines 1997, McMichael et al. 1996) (Table 1). The potential effects of climate change on health are sometimes divided into direct and indirect to separate those impacts where the chain of causation is short, such as increased deaths during heat-waves, and those that are mediated through a longer causal chain. The latter include changes in ecosystems which can, for example, effect the distribution of insect vectors of disease. Most of the anticipated effects are likely to be adverse, although some, such as possible reductions in excess winter death rates due to warmer winters in cool-temperate countries, could be beneficial. Quantification of potential impacts is complicated by the many uncertainties involved and any estimates should be taken as indicative.

2.2 Approaches To Assessing Potential Impacts

There are a number of approaches to assessing the potential impacts of climate change on health. These include the study of historical analogues that simulate certain aspects of future climate change. One example is the study of the effects of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a large irregularly occurring atmosphere–ocean system which results in relatively short-term climate changes over the Pacific region every 2–7 years. The warm event (El Nino) is followed frequently by a cold event (La Nina). The ENSO is also linked by distant connections (teleconnections) to climatic anomalies elsewhere in the world, particularly in countries bordering the Pacific and Indian oceans. Integrated mathematical modeling is also being used increasingly to estimate the future impact on health of climate change. In order to undertake such modeling each component of the sequence of climate, environmental and social change, is represented mathematically.

2.3 Direct Effects Of Heat And Cold

The link between heatwaves and increased death rates has been described in many parts of the world. Excess mortality especially is experienced by the elderly, in particular by those who live in disadvantaged areas without adequate air conditioning. Some of the increase in deaths is due to mortality displacement, i.e., short-term shift in the time of death of those who would have died anyway in the near future. The threshold at which increased death rates occur depends on population acclimatization and is, therefore, higher in those cities where the populations are used to high temperatures. The impact of the first heatwave on mortality in a given summer is often greater than the impact of subsequent heatwaves, probably because a disproportionate number of susceptible people die during the first heatwave. Several studies have quantified the impact of climate change on heat-related mortality. For example, one study (Kalkstein and Greene 1997) estimated an annual excess mortality attributable to climate change (assuming acclimatization) of between 500 and 1,000 for New York and 100 and 250 for Detroit by the year 2050.

There is controversy over the degree to which increases in summer mortality will be outweighed by decreases in winter mortality. Although death rates are higher in winter than in summer in the temperate countries, the relationship may not be directly due to low temperatures and increased viral infections may be partly responsible. Some countries with very cold winters, for example, Russia, seem to have low excess winter mortality, probably because of the effective adaptation of the population to cold winters by the use of warm winter clothing and adequate indoor heating (Donaldson et al. 1998). The UK has a particularly high winter excess mortality and this may be due, at least in part, to fuel poverty. Within Europe larger increases in winter mortality may occur with decreasing temperature in warmer locations, e.g., Athens, than in colder locations (Eurowinter Group 1997) perhaps because populations in countries with generally mild winters fail to wear suitable clothing or their housing is not adapted to low temperatures.

2.4 Studies Of The Effects Of El Nino Southern Oscillation

ENSO can affect rainfall, leading to either droughts or floods in parts of the world, as well as causing increases in temperature and changes in the frequency, intensity, and geographical distribution of extreme weather events such as storms.

The ENSO cycle has been associated with substantial changes in the incidence of malaria in countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Venezuela (reviewed by Kovats et al. 1999). The incidence of dengue fever (a viral disease carried by mosquitoes) is affected by the ENSO cycle in some Pacific Islands (Hales et al. 1996). There are large increases in the numbers of people affected by natural disasters at a global level in El Nino years, and the year following (Bouma et al. 1997). Other health impacts of El Nino include increases in respiratory disorders due to very high levels of air pollution as a result of forest fires that occurred, for example, both in Indonesia and Brazil in association with the 1997 98 event. The ENSO phenomenon is clearly not strictly an analogue for global climate change but does demonstrate that some diseases and health outcomes are sensitive to changes in climate. Recently, there have been suggestions that the frequency of El Nino may increase in the future as a result of climate change (Timmermann et al. 1999). Increasingly, forecasting is being used to give early warning of El Nino in order to improve preparedness and reduce the adverse effects.

2.5 Mathematical Modeling Of Malaria

Mathematical modeling has been applied to the assessment of likely changes in the geographical range of vector-borne diseases such as malaria. One estimate, for example, suggests that approximately 45 percent of the world’s population live in zones of potential malaria transmission as defined by current climatic circumstances, and this would increase to around 60 percent towards the end of the next century assuming other relevant factors remain constant (Martens et al. 1995). Highly aggregated models such as the one used in this example are, of necessity, unable to take into account complexity of future changes. Nevertheless, they give a broad indication of the potential magnitude and direction of change and are continually being refined. They suggest that changes in distribution of malaria are likely to occur particularly at the edges of the current distribution, including, for example, mountainous regions in the tropics and subtropics. Estimation of numbers of excess cases and deaths in the twenty-first century as a result of climate change is hampered by our lack of knowledge, for example, about the potential advances in the development of an effective vaccine for malaria, the distribution of impregnated bed nets to reduce transmission, and the trends in the development of resistance of the parasites to drugs used in treatment.

A number of empirical studies in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Ethiopia have examined how climate variability influences the distribution of malaria. They have indicated that highland malaria can respond to climatic variability, but whether changes in the altitudinal range of malaria which have apparently been observed in a number of sites are due to global climate change, is currently a matter of scientific debate. Only long-term monitoring of climate, vector populations, and the incidence of malaria, as well as potential confounding factors, such as changes in vector control programs and forest cover can finally resolve the controversy.

2.6 Other Vector-Borne Diseases

Other vector-borne diseases which may be affected include those carried by ticks such as tick-borne encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and Lyme disease. The former occurs widely in Central and Eastern Europe and in Scandinavia and the latter occurs in both Europe and the North Eastern US. Other factors which may effect tick-borne diseases include the pattern of forest cover that can influence the distribution of animal hosts on which the ticks can feed and changing patterns of leisure activities which may influence exposure to bites by infected ticks. There are several clinical types of Leishmaniasis, which are transmitted by sandflies in Asia, the Americas, Southern Europe, and Africa. Sandflies are sensitive to changes in temperature and, for example, it was estimated that a 3 C increase in temperature could increase both the geographic and seasonal distribution of one important species in Southwest Asia (Cross and Hyams 1996). The tsetse fly that transmits sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis) is also climate sensitive. In Latin America, the distribution of Chagas’ disease, which is transmitted by the triatomine bug and causes long-term damage to the heart and to the muscle of the gastrointestinal tract, could be affected.

2.7 Extreme Events, Malnutrition, And Sea Level Rise

On average, every year around 120,000 people were killed by natural disasters between 1972 and 1996, with around 60 percent of the deaths occurring in Africa. Over the same period on average nearly 140 million people were affected by such disasters annually, most of these were living in Asia (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 1998). Drought, famine, and flood are the main categories of disaster responsible for the majority of people affected.

Floods may cause a range of impacts on health including deaths and injuries from trauma or drowning, increased incidence of diarrheal disease and sometimes leptospirosis caused by exposure to infected rats’ urine in floodwaters. Malnutrition may increase following flooding in some countries where food security is a problem. The impacts on mental health may be substantial and in some cases long-lasting. An increase in suicides was reported from Poland following floods in 1997 and an increase in behavioral disorders amongst children has been reported. Some parts of the world may experience increased rainfall due to climate change that could lead to larger floods (IPCC 1998).

Climate change could exacerbate periodic and long-term shortages of water especially in the arid and semiarid parts of the world (IPCC 1998). Droughts tend to effect health particularly by causing a reduction in the availability of food. There may also be an increase in diarrheal diseases because water is short and there may not be sufficient for hygienic purposes. Severe drought may not invariably result in famine or major food shortages. For example, a severe drought in southern Africa in 1992 resulted in crop failure rate approaching 80 percent in some of the most affected areas but famine was averted because of regional cooperation and external assistance which provided grain shipments (Noji 1997). Unfortunately, international assistance to support humanitarian relief has fallen overall, for example, it declined 17 percent in real terms between 1992 and 1996, whereas emergency aid has tended to increase. After remaining steady at under half the United Nations target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) for more than 20 years, aid as a share of donor’s wealth fell to 0.25 percent in 1996, its lowest level ever (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 1998). If this trend continues, populations in the twenty-first century may be not only more vulnerable to climatic disaster but less likely to receive effective assistance.

There have been many studies to assess potential changes in food production globally and regionally under conditions of climate change. In general, it appears likely that agricultural yields may increase in the twenty-first century in middle to high latitudes depending on crop type, growing season, and changes in temperature and seasonality of precipitation. However, there are concerns that yields may decrease in parts of the tropics and subtropics particularly where dryland, nonirrigated agriculture predominates (IPCC 1998). This could lead to increased hunger, particularly in Africa.

Sea level rise caused by climate change may result in displacement of some populations particularly those living on deltas and low lying islands as well as leading to salivation of fresh water and increased vulnerability to extreme events.

2.8 Air Pollution

The weather has a substantial influence on the ambient concentrations of air pollutants, for example, high-pressure systems often create a temperature inversion which traps pollutants in the boundary layer near the earth’s surface. Because of increases in anticyclonic conditions in summer in some parts of the world, climate change may increase concentrations of some pollutants. Ozone formation and destruction occurs by means of a complex series of photochemical processes and concentrations in the troposphere may be higher under climate change depending on the emission of precursors. Any increase in forest fires could have substantial effects on human health be-cause of the formation of ‘haze’ with high concentrations of fine particulates (see earlier discussion on El Nino). Concentrations of aeroallergens (pollen, etc.) could be affected by both temperature and precipitation but other factors are also involved such as changes in land use and farming practices (Emberlin 1994).

3. Adaptation And Vulnerability

The reductions in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the Kyoto protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are likely to have little effect on the projected rises in temperature within the first half of the twenty-first century (Parry et al. 1998). Thus, reducing vulnerability to climate change is an important goal for public health in the twenty-first century. There are a number of factors which influence vulnerability, notably poverty with its associated lack of resources and infrastructure. Although historically the majority of greenhouse gas emissions have come from the industrialized nations, vulnerability to cli-mate change is probably greater in developing countries.

Adaptation may be autonomous, indicating a natural or spontaneous response by individuals, or purposeful, typically by governments or other institutions in response to projected climate change. The latter might include strengthening existing disease surveillance systems for potentially climate sensitive diseases, improving vector control programs, and enhancing disaster preparedness plans.

4. Conclusions

Whilst adaptation to climate change is necessary this does not negate the importance of strategies to mitigate climate change, particularly by reducing fossil fuel use (Haines and McMichael 1997). This could have near term benefits by reducing deaths and other adverse effects on health of air pollution (Working Group on Public Health and Fossil Fuel Combustion 1997). The provision of ‘clean energy’ is an important contribution to improving health, particularly in developing countries (Haines and Kammen 2000).

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