Human Health Effects of Climate Change: The Evidence & The Knowledge Gaps Francesca Dominici NCAR October 26 2007 |
Potential Climate Change Impacts |
Slide 3 |
Insect-, Tick-, and Rodent-Borne Diseases |
Changes in weather and vegetation can affect the habitats of organisms such as mosquitoes, rats, and their parasites. | ||
Ex. Malaria | ||
Right now: about 45% of the worldÕs population lives in the zone for malaria transmission. Could rise to 60% |
Water-Borne Diseases |
Heavy rainfall and runoff can damage water quality | ||
Higher risk from bacteria and infectious viruses | ||
Especially problematic for combined wastewater systems |
Climate change impact on biogenic emissions |
Higher temperatures cause increased VOC emissions from trees | |||
Increase of 10¡C can double biogenic emissions | |||
Biogenic emissions can be on the same order of magnitude as anthropogenic emissions |
Temperature and Health |
"Temperature-Related Deaths" |
Temperature-Related Deaths |
Slide 9 |
Not Just Warming More Extreme Events Flooding heatwaves Etc. |
Slide 11 |
Heat Wave in Europe |
Prospective study in an university hospital in Lyon following the French heat wave (August 1-20,2003) | |
A total of 83 patients presented with heatstroke | |
28-day and 2 years mortality rates were 58% and 71% respectively | |
14800 heat stroke deaths in France |
Public health interventions |
Worse outcomes were derived in setting in which the hospital and the community were not prepared for heat related illness, a situation that is probably similar to most communities in temperate climates | |
Innovative ways to treat heatstroke (public health interventions) | |
Identifying individuals at higher risk of heat strokes (susceptibility) |
Temperature, Air Pollution, and Health |
Air Pollution Effects |
Climate changes could affect air pollution levels | |||
Precipitation, wind speed and direction, temperature | |||
Higher temperature means | |||
Faster chemical reaction rates for formation of tropospheric ozone | |||
More emissions of natural ozone precursors |
Slide 16 |
Slide 17 |
Ozone Chemical Reaction Rates Increases with Temperature |
Climate Change, Ozone, and Health |
Are changes in climate anticipated to elevate/lower ambient ozone levels? | |
What are the predicted patterns? | |
What are the associated impacts on health? | |
Slide 20 |
Slide 21 |
Epidemiological studies using national datasets |
Slide 23 |
National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study (NMMAPS), 1987—2000 |
108 urban communities | ||
Cause-specific mortality data from NCHS | ||
all-cause (non-accidental), CVD, respiratory, COPD, pneumonia, accidental | ||
Weather from NWS | ||
Temperature, dew point, relative humidity | ||
Air pollution data from the EPA | ||
PM10, PM2.5, O3, NO2, SO2, CO | ||
U.S. Census 1990, 2000 |
The National Medicare Cohort Study, 1999-2005 (MCAPS) |
Medicare data include: | |||
Billing claims for everyone over 65 enrolled in Medicare (~48 million people), | |||
date of service | |||
treatment, disease (ICD 9), costs | |||
age, gender, and race | |||
place of residence (ZIP code/county) |
Medicare data |
Nationally inclusive | |
Availability of hospitalization and mortality | |
Co-morbidity data available | |
Uses routinely collected data | |
Medical bills available for health cost estimation | |
Encompasses multi-site time series and cohort studies |
Integrating National
Databases for Monitoring Population Health |
NCHF: 48 million identification numbers | |
MCBS: subset of 15,000 Medicare participants with additional information on risk factors | |
AIRS: air pollution monitoring network | |
NOAA: weather monitoring network | |
US Census: location characteristics |
Slide 28 |
Daily time series of hospitalization rates and PM2.5 levels in Los Angeles county (1999-2005) |
Estimating temperature-health exposure-response functions |
Estimating health effects (mortality and morbidity) associated with heat waves |
A surveillance model to track adverse health effects associated with extreme temperatures |
Link national data sources on health, environmental exposures, and confounders | |
Update these data bases to monitor health effects of environmental exposures over time | |
Use the estimated association between extreme temperature events and health using national data sets and then predict the health impact of future climate change scenarios |