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As Temperatures Rise, Health Could Decline
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One model of global warming's effects on air pollution in 15 eastern U.S. cities predicts that the number of days exceeding ozone standards will rise from the current average of 12 to 20 per summer by 2050. Deaths linked to that pollutant -- nearly all in people who have lung or heart ailments -- could go up 5 percent under that scenario.
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Waterborne and Food-Borne Disease
Higher temperatures and torrential rains are likely to cause outbreaks of some diarrheal diseases.
The incidence of cholera -- a bacterial infection whose home is South Asia but that circles the world in slow epidemics -- depends in part on water temperatures in the Bay of Bengal and on monsoon rains. A recent study of waterborne-disease outbreaks in the United States in the past 50 years found that 67 percent were preceded by heavy rainfall.
Researchers in Australia have shown that the number of food-borne infections from salmonella bacteria goes up in hot weather.
Overall, climate change is expected to increase the burden of diarrhea, mostly in developing countries, by 2 to 5 percent by 2020.
Vector-Borne Disease
Scientists suspect that many diseases transmitted by insects and animals will become more common, although there is more uncertainty about this than other consequences of global warming.
Dengue and malaria, carried by mosquitoes, are most likely to increase. Under some projections, Africans will be exposed to malaria 25 percent more of the time in 2100 than they are now.
That risk, however, could be offset by controlling mosquitoes with pesticides, the use of bed nets by children and pregnant women, and better medical care.
Other diseases that may become more prevalent are yellow fever (also carried by mosquitoes), schistosomiasis (by snails), leishmaniasis (sand flies) and Lyme disease (ticks).
The Role of Planning
In the United States, most public discussion of global warming has been about ways to slow the phenomenon, and not about ways to dampen or prevent effects that are already inevitable.
"We are a good decade behind Europe in designing and developing adaptations that will decrease our vulnerability and increase our resilience," said Ebi, the epidemiologist.
Such planning is wise not only for the federal government and states, but for cities and towns as well, Ebi believes.
"The impacts of climate change really do depend on your local context," she said.
