Climate change and influenza: A scoping review

Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that climate change affects the incidence of influenza, however, no reviews have evaluated this evidence across the entire transmission cycle of the disease. To bolster medical and public health systems preparedness for future annual and pandemic influenza, an understanding of how climate affects this transmission cycle is necessary. This scoping review searched the literature examining the effect of climate change on influenza until August 2020. Included articles covered research on climate effects across four thematic areas: 1) viral biology, 2) animal hosts, 3) human epidemiology, and the 4) impact of other planetary health factors on influenza (e.g., urbanization, water scarcity). The database search yielded 19,549 texts, of which 341 full texts were analyzed and 173 included. This review highlights the need to expand the geographical context and methods of research spanning the influenza transmission cycle to help determine which climatological factors affect influenza transmission and prepare for future influenza scenarios.