The subject of health covers a wide variety of issues from heat stress and the relationship between temperature and mortality, to changes in the extend of vector-borne diseases, to the health implications of water scarcity and flooding.  

The headlines on the impact of climate change on health were generated from work from a variety of sources. These include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group 2 report, Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, 2007, research at the Met Office Hadley Centre on heat stress and other published research.

In addition the IPCC WG2 report has collated a great deal of research about the impacts of climate change on agriculture, and this resource was used to support statements about maize, wheat and rice on the poster.

The Met Office Hadley Centre is undertaking research into climate change and heat stress in particular and below is some information on this.  

Heat Stress

The European 2003 heat wave was responsible for ~35,000 heat-related deaths.  In our present climate, the risk of an event of such a magnitude occurring is thought to have been at least doubled due to anthropogenic influences (Stott et al, 2004). In an un-mitigated future climate, the frequency of such events is likely to increase and this increase could be in the region of 100-fold over the next four decades.  

Heat-related mortality is triggered at different temperatures in different locations/cultures/demographic group depending on acclimatisation, behavioural adaptability (access to air conditioning/water/shade/rest), behaviour (active/stationary) and health. For Boston, Budapest, Dallas, Lisbon, London and Sydney the present approximate trigger thresholds are thought to be 26 ºC, 28 ºC, 34 ºC, 28 ºC, 24 ºC and 26 ºC. These temperatures are all commonly exceeded during present day summertime leading to heat-related mortality of approximately 1-6 people per 100,000 per summer (Gosling et al, 2009).  Given a global mean temperature rise of 4 ºC, it is foreseeable that heat-related mortality is set to increase considerably, even taking into account possible acclimatisation and adaptation.

There is likely to be considerable future economic impact commercially and nationally due to either loss of productivity due to hotter working environments and the cost of maintaining and adhering to national and international standards as they are brought in of working conditions (Kjellstrom et al. 2008). In countries/industries where standards are not implemented reduced staff productivity and potential for heat-related illness may be detrimental to individual welfare and health. It is foreseeable that importing countries will be affected economically due to the ability/raised cost of the exporting country to maintain productivity and health standards.

References:

Stott, P. A., Stone, D. A. and Allen, M. R., 2004: Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003. Nature, 432, 610-613pp.

Kjellstrom, T., Kovats, R. S., Lloyd, S. J., Holt, T. and Tol, R. S. J., 2008: The direct impact of climate change on regional labour productivity. ESRI, Working Paper No. 260.

Kovats, R.S., D. Campbell-Lendrum, A. McMichael, A. Woodward and J. Cox, 2001:  Early effects of climate change: do they in clued changes in vector-borne disease? Philos. T. Roy. Soc. Lond. B, 356, 1057-1068.

Kovas, R. S. and K.L. Ebi, 2006:  Heat waves and public health in Europe.  Eur. J. Public Health, 16 592-599. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ck1049

Gosling, S. N., McGregor, G. R., and Lowe, J. A., 2009: Climate change and heat-related mortality in six cities Part2: climate model evaluation and projected impacts from changes in the mean and variability of temperature with climate change. International Journal of Biometeorology, 53, 31-51pp.