National Public Health Week, in the United States, runs from April 6-12. This year the primary focus of the event wasn’t ebola, smoking or diabetes but climate change.
To kick off the week, an open letter was delivered to President Obama signed by 1,000 doctors, nurses, researchers and other health professionals from 49 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. It pointed out the many, catastrophic, public health risks associated with climate change.
“The risks climate change poses to public health have been well-documented. Increased temperatures are spreading tropical diseases to new latitudes. Heat waves will likely cause more deaths across the world. Warmer temperatures and increased prevalence of drought threaten to reduce crop yields and lead to food insecurity and water shortages. And more extreme weather events, coupled with sea-level rise, will threaten low-lying cities globally. Detailing these impacts in 2009, The Lancet, one of the world’s most respected medical journals, labeled climate change “the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century,” read the letter, in part.
The letter expressed support for President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and encouraged Obama and others to expand renewable energy investment, to encourage states to set carbon emission goals and to discourage fracking and nuclear power.
This last is significant because, with the slow development of technologies like solar power, many governments are reconsidering their positions on zero emission nuclear power. In a Pew Research poll published in January 65 percent of scientists polled favored increased nuclear power.
Prior to a roundtable at Howard University Medical School with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about the health impacts of climate change, President Obama issued a proclamation on the subject.
“As a Nation, we must continue to support public health with the same sense of purpose and fierce determination. This week, we join together to declare our intent to rise to the challenges of a changing world and meet our moral obligations to protect the health of our country and the well-being of the next generation,” said the President.
“America’s public health is deeply tied to the health of our environment. As our planet becomes more interconnected and our climate continues to warm, we face new threats to our safety and well-being. In the past three decades, the percentage of Americans with asthma has more than doubled, and climate change is putting these individuals and many other vulnerable populations at greater risk of landing in the hospital. Rising temperatures can lead to more smog, longer allergy seasons, and an increased incidence of extreme-weather-related injuries and illnesses,” he continued.
While the weather and sea level impacts of climate change have been widely discussed, in recent years there has been greater focus on the public health implications. In addition to the impacts of severe weather, heat waves, smog and longer allergy seasons there is increasing concern about the spread of infectious diseases.
While the number of and attention paid to invasive species have noticeably increased in recent years, the invasive species that are most concerning are the viruses and parasites that people likely won’t see coming according to the World Health Organization.
