Climate Change and Human Health: Impacts and Pathways to Resilience
Introduction
Outlining impacts of climate change on human health has been an area that many researchers have spent more resources and time. The aim has been finding out how human activities have accelerated global warming and climate change thus promoting health impacts such as infectious diseases, displacements and respiratory diseases among others. There are numerous direct and indirect health impacts of climate change. Significantly, climate change affects patterns of infectious disease while impacting negatively on health of humans. Therefore, there is need for Americans to protect themselves from emerging infectious diseases. This paper discusses climate change in respect to human health by highlighting impacts and pathways to resilience for a better future.
Direct and indirect impacts of climate change
There are broad arrays of direct and indirect health impacts of climate change outlined in the video. First, climate change promotes the occurrence of vector borne diseases; more heat in the atmosphere leads to death due to extreme body temperatures and thus impacts indirectly to families as they lose their loved ones. Second, climate changes leads to migration as people move from one place to another in search of favorable environment thereby causing civil conflicts and unrests. Third, heat related ailments are on the rise due to climate change, these leads to death and cardiovascular failures and diseases such as asthma to the extreme. Fourth, climate changes has impacted negatively on health of humans because it has accelerated the occurrence of diseases such as Malaria, Dengue, Encephalitis, Hantavirus, Rift Valley fever, Chickungunya and West Nile virus. Lastly, climate change has created harmful fungal infections, promoted malnutrition and cholera through contamination of the environment.
Effects of Climate change on infectious diseases patterns
As a result of climate change, infectious diseases are becoming common both at home and abroad. The effects are felt by both plants and animals operating on the delicate environment. In this article, it is worth mentioning that climatic factors are greatly influencing the emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases. Also, the emergence and reemergence is motivated by other factors such as human activities, biological orientations and ecological influences. Apparently, there is increase of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Hantavirus, Malaria, Dengue, Encephalitides, Hepatitis C and SARS among others. Climate change directly shortens pathogen incubation period of disease carriers and in the process promoting growth and thus increasing infections. Notably, increasing temperatures leads to higher incidence of water-borne infectious and toxin-related illnesses, such as cholera. Consequently, human migration from one region to another in search of favorable environmental conditions contributes to diseases transmission.
Mitigation efforts
Americans can potentially protect themselves from these newly emerging infectious diseases in a variety of ways. This article outlines that there in need disinfect emerging waterborne pathogens, altering the habitats of infectious diseases carryon vectors and continued vigilance in supply of blood from immigrants. Importantly, there is need for new vaccines used to prevent diseases both at home and abroad to mitigate transmission. Lastly, researchers must be ready to investigate, identify opportunities of infections and how diagnosis, treatment, control and prevention can be implemented.
Conclusion
Major challenges have been witnessed in identification, quantification and prediction of health impacts of climate change in respect to complex direct and indirect causal pathways. This is a complex process because in one way or the other, human are responsible for health issues affecting them because they are major agents accelerating global warming and climate change. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, cutting down trees, fertilizer use and pesticides sprays are among activities that have greatly polluted the environment. Climate change has impacted both directly and indirectly to human health since it accelerates transmission of infectious diseases.