Editorial: Impact of climate and air pollution on acute coronary syndromes: an update from the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2017
Year:
2017
Objective: The California heat illness prevention study (CHIPS) devised methodology and collected physiological data to assess heat related illness (HRI) risk in Latino farmworkers. Methods: Bilingual researchers monitored HRI across a workshift, recording core temperature, work rate (metabolic equivalents [METs]), and heart rate at minute intervals. Hydration status was assessed by changes in weight and blood osmolality. Personal data loggers and a weather station measured exposure to heat. Interviewer administered questionnaires were used to collect demographic and occupational information.
Occupational health is particularly affected by high heat exposures in workplaces, which will be an increasing problem as climate change progresses. People working in jobs of moderate or heavy work intensity in hot environments are at particular risk, owing to exposure to high environmental heat and internal heat production. This heat needs to be released to protect health, and such release is difficult or impossible at high temperatures and high air humidity. A range of clinical health effects can occur, and the heat-related physical
The impacts of climate change on global temperatures profoundly affect people’s ability to sustain their livelihoods as well as their health; both of these dimensions in turn influence the migration of people. Indeed, increasing heat related to climate change is likely to result in more disruptive events, such as frequent droughts, wildfires, episodes of extreme temperatures and heat waves. Such events are already directly and indirectly displacing large numbers of people each year and likely to lead to the migration of more people in the future.
Climate change threatens human health in many ways, through heat waves, extreme weather events, and shifts in disease vectors, as well as economic and social stresses on populations living in or trying to escape areas affected by seawater intrusion, drought, lower agricultural productivity, and floods. 1 In the short term, most of these impacts could be substantially ameliorated by actions to reduce background disease risks and other known causes of vulnerability.
Ambient heat exposure is a well-known health hazard, which reduces human performance and work capacity at heat levels already common in tropical and subtropical areas. Various health problems have been reported. Increasing heat exposure during the hottest seasons of each year is a key feature of global climate change. Heat exhaustion and reduced human performance are often overlooked in climate change health impact analysis. Later this century, many among the four billion people who live in hot areas worldwide will experience significantly reduced work capacity owing to climate change. In
Ambient heat exposure is a well-known health hazard, which reduces human performance and work capacity at heat levels already common in tropical and subtropical areas. Various health problems have been reported. Increasing heat exposure during the hottest seasons of each year is a key feature of global climate change. Heat exhaustion and reduced human performance are often overlooked in climate change health impact analysis. Later this century, many among the four billion people who live in hot areas worldwide will experience significantly reduced work capacity owing to climate change.
One feature of climate change is the increasing heat exposure in many workplaces where efficient cooling systems cannot be applied. Excessive heat exposure is a particular problem for working people because of the internal heat production when muscle work is carried out. The physiological basis for severe heat stroke, other clinical effects, and heat exhaustion is well known. One feature of this health effect of excessive workplace heat exposure is reduced work capacity, and new research has started to quantify this effect in the context of climate change.