Cargando…

Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health

During every climatic era Life on Earth is constrained by a limited range of climatic conditions, outside which thriving and then surviving becomes difficult. This applies at both planetary and organism (species) levels. Further, many causal influences of climate change on human health entail change...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: McMichael, Anthony J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24225646
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10116096
_version_ 1782295874555084800
author McMichael, Anthony J.
author_facet McMichael, Anthony J.
author_sort McMichael, Anthony J.
collection PubMed
description During every climatic era Life on Earth is constrained by a limited range of climatic conditions, outside which thriving and then surviving becomes difficult. This applies at both planetary and organism (species) levels. Further, many causal influences of climate change on human health entail changes—often disruptive, sometimes irreversible—in complex system functioning. Understanding the diverse health risks from climate change, and their influence pathways, presents a challenge to environmental health researchers whose prior work has been in a more definable, specific and quantitative milieu. Extension of the research agenda and conceptual framework to assess present and future health risks from climate change may be constrained by three factors: (i) lack of historically-informed understanding of population-health sensitivity to climatic changes; (ii) an instinctual ‘epidemiologising’ tendency to choose research topics amenable to conventional epidemiological analysis and risk estimation; and (iii) under-confidence in relation to interdisciplinary collaborative scenario-based modeling of future health risks. These constraints must be recognized and remedied. And environmental researchers must argue for heightened public attention to today’s macro-environmental threats to present and future population health—emphasising the ecological dimension of these determinants of long-term health that apply to whole populations and communities, not just to individuals and social groupings.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3863889
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2013
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-38638892013-12-16 Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health McMichael, Anthony J. Int J Environ Res Public Health Review During every climatic era Life on Earth is constrained by a limited range of climatic conditions, outside which thriving and then surviving becomes difficult. This applies at both planetary and organism (species) levels. Further, many causal influences of climate change on human health entail changes—often disruptive, sometimes irreversible—in complex system functioning. Understanding the diverse health risks from climate change, and their influence pathways, presents a challenge to environmental health researchers whose prior work has been in a more definable, specific and quantitative milieu. Extension of the research agenda and conceptual framework to assess present and future health risks from climate change may be constrained by three factors: (i) lack of historically-informed understanding of population-health sensitivity to climatic changes; (ii) an instinctual ‘epidemiologising’ tendency to choose research topics amenable to conventional epidemiological analysis and risk estimation; and (iii) under-confidence in relation to interdisciplinary collaborative scenario-based modeling of future health risks. These constraints must be recognized and remedied. And environmental researchers must argue for heightened public attention to today’s macro-environmental threats to present and future population health—emphasising the ecological dimension of these determinants of long-term health that apply to whole populations and communities, not just to individuals and social groupings. MDPI 2013-11-12 2013-11 /pmc/articles/PMC3863889/ /pubmed/24225646 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10116096 Text en © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Review
McMichael, Anthony J.
Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health
title Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health
title_full Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health
title_fullStr Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health
title_full_unstemmed Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health
title_short Impediments to Comprehensive Research on Climate Change and Health
title_sort impediments to comprehensive research on climate change and health
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24225646
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10116096
work_keys_str_mv AT mcmichaelanthonyj impedimentstocomprehensiveresearchonclimatechangeandhealth