RUSSIAN AND INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACTION PLANS FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN HEALTH FROM CLIMATE RISKS

Abstract

The Paris climate agreement confirmed that climate change continues to pose a global concern and required all Parties to put forward their best efforts to protect public health. In the conditions of global warming, climate-induced risks gained importance as a public health hazard and confirmed the need to develop national action plans. Such plans shall be developed locally, taking into account the requirements of the National Action Plan for adaptation to health risks induced by changing climate. This manuscript presents the data on climate-dependent mortality. The global annual burden of excess deaths attributed to climate change is over 150,000 cases, which leads to a loss of 5.5 million years of productive life per year. Early warning systems have been adopted in many countries, with the goal to prevent heat-related deaths. If such a system were implemented in Moscow, eleven thousand excess deaths could have been avoided during the extremely hot summer of 2010. Heat watch warning systems are based on scientific data on heat thresholds. On the days with temperatures above such thresholds, climate-dependent mortality increases. Such thresholds have been established in the environmental epidemiology studies conducted in Moscow, Northern and Southern cities, the cities with continental and monsoon climates. The experience of implementation of early warning systems during extreme weather events was analyzed. The relative powers of bioclimatic indices as predictors of daily mortality rates during extreme weather events were compared. To prevent complications of cardiovascular diseases, a set of protective measures was proposed which included cardiology medications, recommendations on personal behavior and drinking habits during extreme heat, and other measures. The risks and examples of occurrence and northward propagation of climate-dependent infectious diseases such as Siberian anthrax, West Nile fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and dirofilariasis, were described.