As global climate change proliferates, so too do the health risks associated with the changing world around us. Called for in the President’s Climate Action Plan and put together by experts from eight different Federal agencies, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health: A Scientific Assessment is a comprehensive report on these evolving health risks, including: Temperature-related death and illness Air quality deterioration Impacts of extreme events on human health Vector-borne diseases Climate impacts on water-related Illness Food safety, nutrition, and distribution Mental health and well-being This report summarizes scientific data in a concise and accessible fashion for the general public, providing executive summaries, key takeaways, and full-color diagrams and charts. Learn what health risks face you and your family as a result of global climate change and start preparing now with The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health.

This book is the first to present a regional analysis of climate change and human health, focusing on geographically and socio-economically distinct countries of South and Southeast Asia. It has a major focus on India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal and Taiwan. Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to human health. lt represents a range of environmental hazards and will affect populations in both the developed and developing countries. In particular, it affects the regions where the current burden of climate-sensitive diseases are high, which is the case in South and Southeast Asian countries.

Observed changes in the Earth's climate over the past 100 years appear to be consistent with theoretical models of greenhouse warming, according to the participants in a recent scientific conference on Human Health and Global Climate Change, cosponsored by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and the Institute of Medicine (lOM). These models suggest that, without major changes in environmental policy, we could expect to see even greater changes in global climate over the next 100 years. These changes could produce alterations both in physical systems (e.g., higher temperatures, heavier rainfall, and rising sea level) and in ecosystems (e.g., forests, agriculture, marine ecologies, and the habitats of various insects and animals). In addition to the global changes associated with greenhouse warming, a continuing depletion of stratospheric ozone would increase the amount of ultraviolet radiation that reaches the Earth's surface, causing increased rates of skin cancer, cataracts, and immune suppression.