Health and climate – opportunities

Abstract

While Hippocrates recognized that health is influenced by the external environment, it is only recently that the relationship between health and climate has become a focus of community and public health services. Advances in understanding of weather and climate sciences on the one hand and human health on the other are providing new opportunities for early detection, prediction and prevention of the adverse health effects of hazards as diverse as tropical cyclones, floods, heatwaves and cold spells, air quality, wildfires, droughts and disease epidemics. Early warning of disease outbreaks and a timely response makes prevention possible. For some climate-sensitive diseases, our understanding is sufficient to make health forecasting possible; for others, the relationship between the disease and any causal environmental effect remains unclear, and the focus of active research programs. Institutional changes are also taking place to improve operational and research cooperation between the health sector and the weather and climate communities, ranging from joint service delivery platforms to combined research and development programs.