Climate change impacts on health across the life course
This article is an introduction to a journal issue which includes three articles summarising the available reviews on the impact of climate change on maternal and newborn health, child and adolescent health, and older people, which together take a life course approach to optimal development and healthy ageing. Climate change directly impacts health, such as the effects of extreme or sustained heat on susceptible sub-populations, including pregnant women, newborns, infants, children, vulnerable adults and older persons.
Climate change can also indirectly negatively affect health through multiple pathways by negatively affecting the underlying determinants of health. Examples include reduced crop outputs leading to food shortages, reduced nutritional intake, and decreased vitality (e.g. strength and metabolic balance). Climate change can increase the geographic range of disease vectors, such as mosquito species found at higher altitudes, leading to an increased incidence of malaria, West Nile fever, and Zika, among others, in new locations. These and other direct and indirect effects are cumulative and occur across the life course. The effects of climate change can either be exacerbated by existing inequalities and the interaction with other crises or be mitigated through good governance
Explore further
