GENEVA – The World Health Organization has made climate change a top priority in its four-year work plan adopted by the World Health Assembly this week, but major gaps in climate health research could hinder the U.N. health agency's efforts, experts warned at a Geneva health forum on Wednesday.
Current research on the health impacts of climate change is heavily biased towards the Northern Hemisphere and China, while countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as small island developing states, remain understudied. Moreover, most studies focus on the direct health impacts of climatic phenomena, overlooking their impacts on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which are a major contributor to the global disease burden.
“Most research to date has focused on temperature-related health risks and dangers, second to infectious diseases,” said Dr Ming Yang, senior editor at Nature Medicine , “with little research on other health impacts, such as NCDs, maternal and child health, mental health, the impact of climate change on health systems, extreme weather events, and diet and food security.”
The health impacts of climate change on non-communicable diseases range from mental stress due to extreme weather events, to increased cardiovascular disease due to wildfire smoke, to malnutrition due to drought, and increased risk of vector-borne diseases. The WHO recently acknowledged that the impact of climate change on malaria and other neglected tropical diseases is not fully understood.
According to The Lancet, climate change could affect many of the main risk factors for premature death, including malnutrition, air pollution, high blood pressure, smoking, unhealthy diet, high blood sugar, obesity, high cholesterol, impaired kidney function and occupational hazards. As the global health burden from NCDs continues to rise, the forum experts stressed that it is crucial to expand climate research to explore its impact on these diseases.
“Nobody is talking about the true burden of disease, such as obesity or heart disease,” said Dr. Anders Nordström, a former global health ambassador for the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Epidemiological studies are not being done properly.”
Speaking ahead of the World Health Assembly, WHO noted that published research on climate and health tends to focus too much on “countries with a low disease burden and good access to quality health care” and that too little research has been done to quantify the health impacts of climate change in the world's poorest countries, which according to the IPCC are most at risk of climate disasters.
“Climate change is not just about heatwaves,” Yang emphasized. “It's also about extreme weather events like wildfires, floods and tropical cyclones. Air pollution is also increasing in damage. We are only just beginning to understand the chronic health impacts of climate change on cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, kidney and neurological diseases, and especially mental health.”
The gap in climate health research becomes even more pronounced when considering climate adaptation and mitigation: a recent WHO survey found that only 34% of studies on malaria and NTDs addressed mitigation strategies, and only 5% looked at adaptation methods.
This adaptation shortfall reflects the broader global climate change landscape, in which wealthy countries are falling short on promises to help climate-vulnerable regions adapt to a warming world.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), developing countries received just $21 billion in international funding for climate change adaptation in 2021. However, UNEP estimates that these countries need between $194 billion and $366 billion per year just for adaptation. As the climate crisis intensifies, the funding gap is expected to widen.
The WHO's GPW-14 plan puts climate and health at its core, funding the UN health agency's global activities, from emergency response to general health issues, and taking into account the financial scope of the climate agenda. Of the target budget of $11.1 billion, the WHO has only secured $4 billion, with the rest expected to be raised in a fundraising campaign in the second half of 2024.
“It's clear that climate change is the most important crisis,” said Maria Neira, director of the WHO's department of public health, environment and social determinants of health. “Now, what happens next?”
Image credit: Matt Howard/Unslash.
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