“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”
Climate change & health in context
Climate change is happening along with changes in the global environment and human demography. These categories act together to increase health impacts. There needs to be more approaches that are along the lines of the WHO's holistic definition of health: "a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity" (WHO, 1946).
Because of the interactions of these different categories, it is difficult to screen for infectious diseases that are sensitive to climate change (Wang, 2015).
Categories related to projected health effects:
(Barrett, 2015)
- changing patterns of disease
- food
- water and sanitation
- shelter and human settlements
- extreme weather events
- migration
Important research paths with examples of relevant topics (Haines, 2006)