A Changing Climate

Our climate is changing and we are experiencing more extreme weather patterns, which
can affect our health and well-being. The present climate change may be partly due to
natural causes, and partly due to greenhouse gases from fuel combustion which build up
in our atmosphere, trap heat, and cause the planet to get warmer. The extent of climate
change and its effects will differ across the country, as some parts, including the Arctic,
will warm more or warm faster than others. The warmer climate will bring with it more
variable and more extreme weather patterns, such as heat waves or severe cold, storms,
droughts and floods.

A Better Understanding
Scientists have a good understanding of the physical factors that influence our climate.
For example, we know that motor vehicle exhaust and other emissions from burning fuels
contribute to the warming of the globe. What we need now is a better understanding of
how a warmer earth will affect our health and well-being, and how we can adapt to the
changes in the climate which we are already experiencing. Efforts by the various levels of
government and by the private enterprises are already underway to conserve energy, and
to limit and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Although
this will help in the future, impacts from climate change and its more extreme weather
patterns are being felt already in some parts of Canada.

Potential Health Impacts

A warmer climate and its more extreme weather patterns can bring about an increase in
illnesses such as asthma and allergies, respiratory and cardiovascular stress - especially in
people who are not in good health, who work outdoors or in hot environments, in the
elderly, and in the young. We therefore need to better understand how climate change can
affect us, and how we can best manage the risks to our health and well-being which can
result from a changing climate.

What is Health Canada Doing?

Health Canada is the federal agency responsible for safeguarding and promoting the
physical, mental and social health of Canadians. Its Climate Change and Health Office
facilitates the research to produce sound public health policies to help cope with the
effects of climate change. The Climate Change and Health Office works with all levels of
government, with researchers and policy makers, and with private sector and community
organizations to integrate health considerations into research and educational activities
and into health policies related to climate change. One of its priorities is to lead the
development of the research agenda on climate change and human health and well-being.
The Office also fosters the development of national policies for assessing, managing and
communicating the health risks associated with a changing climate.
Collaborating for Better Results
By bringing together researchers, policy analysts and public health organizations, the
Climate Change and Health Office encourages the development of health research, and of
sound national health policies and health action plans. It achieves this by working with
other agencies and researchers, by improving access to research results, and by sharing
policy developments on climate change. In addition to hosting conferences and meetings
to facilitate cooperation amongst researchers and policy makers, the Office serves as a
clearing house for information on research funding, and on the health impacts of climate
change.

Helping the People of Canada Maintain and Improve

Their Health
To be able to adapt successfully to the changing climate, we need to understand its
impact on human health and well-being, and we need to find new solutions which will
help us to cope with the environmental changes. This requires combining the knowledge
from many fields of science to develop improved policies and actions to maintain our
health and well-being. The efforts of the Climate Change and Health Office to stimulate
collaboration between researchers and policy analysts will help to create such health
policies and action plans at the community, regional and national levels.

Climate has changed more rapidly over the past decade or so than was foreseen in
previous modelled forecasts. Some of the phenomena (eg, melting glaciers and changes
to rainfall regimens) previously assumed to lie decades ahead now appear to be
underway. The recent apparent increase in frequency and intensity of some extreme
weather events portend significant risks to human well-being and accord with the
expectation that climate will become. Interest in the relationship between climate and
health has a long history. In the fifth century BC, Hippocrates related epidemics to
seasonal weather changes. In 1877, severe drought affected India, China, and other areas,
causing over 20 million estimated deaths from famine and disease. However, the health
impacts of human-induced global climate change seem likely to occur on a different
spatial scale and with different temporal dynamics from those of natural climate
variability. This emerging global environmental hazard poses important conceptual and
methodologic challenges to epidemiologists, in identifying, forecasting, and proposing
ways of ameliorating the health risks of climate change.

Recent evidence indicates that more variable with global warming. Such extreme events
are illustrated by 1) Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed over 1000 people, displaced
over a million people, and spread oil, toxins, and microorganisms throughout the U.S.
Gulf Coast, and 2) the 2003 heat wave that killed 35,000 people in western Europe alone
and caused severe economic losses. Other recent weather disasters (eg, floods in Central
Europe in 2002 and 2005) and record high temperatures in many parts of the world (eg,
severe heat waves in Australia in 2004 and 2005) may have incorporated an increasing
influence of climate change. Further, other evidence indicates that the transmission of
infectious diseases (eg, malaria, schistosomiasis, and Lyme disease) may have increased
in some parts of the world in association with warming. While developed countries may
find it difficult to cope with the impacts of occasional extreme manifestations of climate
change, developing countries face more difficulties in defining, assessing and, in
particular, adapting to these changes.

In light of these emerging trends, more investment in research and policy development is
needed in relation to both mitigation and adaptation. The former is essential to minimize
future health (and other) impacts, and the latter is essential to reduce the risk of health
impacts, which cannot be avoided in the near to medium term. To engage in this now-
important topic area, epidemiologists will need to generate skills and methods in 1)
interdisciplinary research (including in connection with some unfamiliar earth-system
science topics); 2) assessing causal relationships within a system-change context; and 3)
scenario-based risk assessment of future health risks. The formal evaluation of
community-based adaptive (coping) strategies will also be important.

All human societies, from primitive to advanced, have had to adapt to the challenges posed by
climate. It affects where people live, how they make a living, what they eat, the abundance or
lack of fresh water and even what they do in their leisure time. Deeply embedded in this
fundamental relationship between climate and human life are the many ways in which climate has
always played a role in human health. Climate defines health concerns such as the direct effects
of excess heat or cold, the lack of sufficient water during drought seasons or perennially in certain
parts of the world, and the risk of various water-borne or vector-borne diseases based on
conditions favorable to their spread.

Yesterday
• Some variation in climate has long been recognized, such as a series of especially cold winters
or the impact of drought. But climate has historically been seen as a consistent characteristic
of particular areas and thought of as defining various types of health concerns in regions and
nations on a more or less permanent basis.

• Though it is clear that shifts in climate have occurred over time in the past, these changes have
occurred very slowly and likewise, the human response has been extremely gradual over
generations.

Today
• It is now established that climate changes are occurring at an increasingly rapid rate. These
changes require active monitoring and coordinated responses in all aspects of their effects on
human society, including health effects.
 Clearly, when populated areas heat up, residents have to adapt to heat as a stressor to
vulnerable populations such as the very young and older people, or those already stressed by
disease or poverty.

• As the ambient temperature of a region rises, the ecology changes, and therefore populations of
disease-carrying animals or insects may increase. Disease vectors such as mosquitoes, ticks,
and flies may occur in greater numbers over longer periods during the year and with less die-
off over a less cold winter.

• Warming may also change patterns of air movement and pollution, causing expanded or
changed patterns of human exposure and resulting health effects. Today, human populations
are on a learning curve to understand how to address health effects related to climate change.

• Many avenues of research currently funded by NIH are relevant to these disease concerns. For
example, existing investments in research on air pollution and respiratory disease,
characteristics governing vector range, and impacts of exposure to agricultural chemicals, are
yielding important research results that are directly relevant to solving the eventual problems
regarding health impacts that will be presented by climate change.
Tomorrow
• Recently released reports from the Institute of Medicine, the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) outline many
changes that are likely to occur in our climate, weather, ecosystems, water supply and other
aspects of our physical environment as a result of global warming. These changes have
significant anticipated health impacts.