CClimate change kills people. Since 2000, nearly 4 million people around the world have been affected by floods, wildfires, heat waves, droughts, and other extreme weather events linked to steady global warming, according to recent estimates published in the journal. It is said that he lost his life. Nature. Looking at these huge numbers, it can be difficult for any of us to grasp how this problem is impacting the health of our own small part of the world. Now, in a new study, natural medicine provides some of that detailed insight to people living in the United States, examining how climate-related disasters impact emergency department visits and post-disaster related deaths in county hospitals across the country. doing. The numbers are alarming, the researchers found, with mortality rates 3.8 times higher in the worst-hit areas than in surrounding areas.
“This is especially true for hospitals and emergency departments that are damaged, lack power, or are understaffed,” said Dr. Renee Salas, an emergency physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and the study's lead author. If there is a shortage, it could become a huge burden.”
For their study, Salas and his co-authors examined health records from emergency departments of major hospitals in more than 4,800 counties across the country affected by the multibillion-dollar storm. They focused their study only on Medicare patients for a variety of reasons, including the cost of property loss, insurance claims, and government recovery efforts. People with private insurance may gain or lose insurance as they change jobs, making the data set incomplete, whereas Medicare coverage, once started, lasts a lifetime. is common. Furthermore, the population most vulnerable to climate change-related death, injury, and illness is the elderly. Finally, Medicare is funded by taxpayers, and studying the health impacts of climate change and the resulting impact on people's pockets is critical to establishing future policy. be.
“Currently, medical costs are not factored into the total economic cost of these disasters,” Salas says.
In counties most affected by climate-related events, emergency department utilization and mortality rates increased by 1.22% and 1.4%, respectively, for at least one week after the event compared to surrounding counties that were less affected. It remained as it was. These numbers may seem relatively small. However, in counties with available tracking data, hospital visits and death rates remained elevated for up to six weeks, with death rates 2.5 times higher than in counties less affected by the event. This is what research has revealed.
read more: Climate change is not just a global threat, it's a public health emergency
Acute health problems, such as smoke inhalation from wildfires, dehydration, and heat stroke due to rising temperatures, were the most common causes of emergency visits and deaths. But other kinds of harm spread more slowly. Contaminated water and mold-related infections can pose a health risk, and power outages can shut down vital health equipment like air conditioning and CPAP machines. Hospital closures and unavailability of needed medicines may also be a contributing factor.
“People are likely to suffer long-term damage from the extreme weather events,” Salas said. In most cases, reports of deaths and injuries do not take into account “the long tail that these events seem to be having on the most vulnerable people,” she added.
Climate change itself may have its own long tail. Wildfires and droughts recorded in the study tended to last about 200 to 300 days, all the while causing an increase in illness and injury. As time goes on, this type of mega-crisis is becoming more common. Data cited in the study and from the National Center for Environmental Information and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that multibillion-dollar events account for up to 80% of all climate-related damage in the United States. However, the remaining 20% do not. without any risk. The new study did not provide a “complete picture of all extreme weather events,” Salas said.
When it comes to climate change, the world is bracing for months of misery. According to another study just published in scientific report, the combination of greenhouse gases and a particularly intense El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean will result in a 90% chance of record-breaking global average surface temperatures through the end of June. Areas expected to be most affected are the Philippines, the Caribbean, and the Bay of Bengal region. The Amazon and Alaska could also be seriously affected if heating worsens further than models predict. The paper's authors warn that wildfires, cyclones and heatwaves threaten local populations' ability to adapt to and mitigate crises. This is especially true for people living in low-income parts of the world, where the medical infrastructure in the United States and other highly industrialized countries is less developed. Countries.
“Our longitudinal findings occur in high-income countries with relatively robust health systems,” Salas says. “Mortality rates in low- and middle-income countries have been shown to be even higher after tropical cyclones, making it clear that they may not be able to adequately cope with these large-scale climate-related disasters.”
Climate change is a global issue. It also affects the health of each of us, country by country, county by county, and individual by person.
