Reducing climate impact on human health

Editor's note: Effective health system governance is essential to ensure healthcare services are equitable, efficient, of high quality, and accessible and affordable for all. It is also important to take effective measures to reduce the impact of climate change on human health to build a healthy society. Five experts share their views on the issue with China Daily.

The increasing frequency of extreme weather and other climate-related events caused by climate change is affecting human health in multiple ways. Climate change is increasing the spread of infectious diseases: by directly impacting communicable diseases and indirectly altering vectors. Rising temperatures and pollution are directly impacting human health by contributing, through complex mechanisms, to increased incidences of cardiovascular, respiratory and other diseases. Changes in vectors due to climate change are influencing the transmission of infectious diseases. While frequent extreme weather events, leading to major natural disasters, also pose significant mental health risks, environmental effects of climate change like reduced crop yield and water shortage threaten people's health and livelihoods.

For instance, changes in temperature patterns and atmospheric pressure, along with extreme weather events like heatwaves and cold spells, directly threaten human cardiovascular and respiratory systems, while heat waves overload the human thermoregulatory mechanism and exacerbate preexisting organ and tissue dysfunction, thereby increasing the risk of respiratory and circulatory diseases. Cold spells, on their part, induce vasoconstriction (narrowing of blood vessels), raising blood pressure and increasing platelet count, and cholesterol and fibrinogen levels, all of which aggravate cardiovascular and cerebrovascular dysfunction.