Climate change and health may look like two unrelated entities but in reality, they are both mutually involved, To find out how we will have to look at Europe, the old continent where 104,000 deaths were reported in 2018 in Europe due to Heatwave.
Estimates suggest that more than 60,000 deaths happen every year in developing countries due to Climate change, the sad part here is this estimate is three times greater than that was in 1960.
Now to get an idea of how is this happening,
let us think of two scenarios
- The first one being due to allergens such as pollen,
The rising mercury levels, and carbon dioxide levels prolong the pollen season and may lead to some serious issues such as Asthma
- the second one may look far fetched as of now but the possibility of this happening is still possible,
Mosquitoes are responsible for about 1 million deaths every year. They are comfortably living in the tropical region as its temperature is very much suitable, After some years from now, the now temperate region could become warmer and hence become an easy breeding ground for Mosquitoes.
The Exposure pathway maps the possible number of ways in which humans can be affected by hazardous substances or phenomena as seen in this case.
The exposure pathways of climate change include:
- Air quality
- Extreme weather events
- Heat stress
- Water quality
- Food security
- Vector distribution and ecology
Climate-sensitive health care risk is divided into two categories,
- Health outcomes
- health systems and facilities
Health outcomes:
- Injury and mortality due to extreme weather events
- Heat-related illness
- Respiratory illness
- Waterborne and related diseases
- Zoo-noses
- Vector-borne diseases
- Malnutrition and food-borne diseases
- Non-communicable diseases
- Mental health outcomes
An estimated 250,000 added deaths occur every year due to Malaria, malnutrition, diarrhea, and heat stress.
Improving air quality can save up to 1 million lives, Two to Four billion USD worth of is damage is bored by us in the health sector
Strategies to counter climate change
Mitigation:
This process involves reducing and removing Greenhouse gas from our atmosphere mitigation is more based on tackling causes this could be done by encouraging people to use public transport, being a part of the sharing economy, and saying no to harmful fuels.
Adaptation:
this is all about supporting the health care system to adjust to climate change and is about trying to reduce the impact climate change has on the system this could be done by building a more climate-resilient health care system.
WHO operational framework has listed ten components which are divided into six blocks for building a climate-resilient health care system
They are,
- Leadership and governance
- Health workforce
- Vulnerability, capacity, and adaptation (V&A) assessment
- Integrated risk monitoring and early warning
- Health and climate research
- Climate-resilient and sustainable technologies and infrastructure
- Management of environmental determinants of health
- Climate-informed health programs
- Emergency preparedness and management
- Climate change and Health finance
Persons contributing least to climate change are often among the most severely affected people, Persons with disabilities are affected severely, women and children are 14 times more likely to be affected by climate change and all these contribute to causing social injustice to our fellow human beings.
This is high time that we start mending our ways for a decent today and a better tomorrow, To conclude I would like to quote a native American proverb which goes like “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
