Health effects and associated socio-economic costs of increasing temperatures and wildfires - A global assessment

Informations

Funding country

Norway

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2020

End date

12/31/2023

Budget

469,737 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

The health effects of extreme heat are interlinked with air pollution in several ways. Ambient and indoor air pollution is currently the largest environmental killer in the world, causing up to 7 million premature deaths annually. Previous studies indicate that the combination of hot temperatures and air pollution may be particularly detrimental to human health. Moreover, extreme heat may in itself increase air pollution levels. Importantly, the risk of wildland fires increases during periods of extreme heat and decreasing precipitation. Wildland fires are one of the single strongest contributors to atmospheric pollution world-wide. In an increasingly warming world, episodes of extreme heat and high levels of pollutants are likely to occur simultaneously, could occur more often, last longer, and become more intense, causing increasing health risks. The HEATCOST project quantifies global current and future changes in cardiopulmonary (CPD) mortality and morbidity due to extreme heat and air pollution (including from wildfires) under selected climate and socio-economic pathway scenarios, while assessing a diverse set of adaptation mechanisms and strategies, and estimates the associated costs. An extensive number of heat stress indicators (HSIs) has been developed to measure the associated impacts on human health. In Schwingshackl et al. (2021), we calculate eight HSIs for global climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). We compare their future trends as function of global mean temperature, with particular focus on highly populated regions. We find that exceedances of impact-relevant thresholds are strongly increasing globally, including in several densely populated regions. The topical review by Sillmann et al. (2021) provides an overview of current methodologies applied in the two fields of human health and agricultural crop impact studies, ranging from empirical regression-based and experimental methods to more complex process-based models. The latter are reasonably well developed for estimating impacts on agricultural crops, but not for health impacts. We review available literature addressing the combined effects of climate and air pollution on human health or agricultural productivity to provide insights regarding state-of-the-art knowledge and currently available methods in the two fields. Challenges to assess the combined effect of climate and air pollution on human health and crops, and opportunities for both fields to learn from each other, are discussed. Hu et al (2022) is to our knowledge the first review and meta-analysis of studies. We identified 22 eligible studies, eleven of which were included in the meta-analysis. Significant effect modification was observed on heat effects for all-cause and non-accidental mortality by particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of <10 µm (PM10) and ozone (O3) (p < 0.05). PM10 and O3 modify the heat-related all-cause and non-accidental mortality, indicating that policymakers should consider air pollutants when establishing heat-health warning systems. Future studies with comparable designs and settings are needed. Jabakhanji et al (2022) reports from a workshop organized at the 2021-European Public Health conference where findings from different Belmont Forum projects were presented, and the conclusions from a panel discussion between international researchers and public health experts. The main conclusions were that more capacity is needed to monitor health effects and inequities, evaluate adaptation and mitigation interventions, address current under-representations of low- or middle-income countries, and translate research into effective policymaking.