The Indian public healthcare system needs to be protected from global climate change

Padma Bhushan Dr. Nirmal Kumar Ganguly, Former Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Kaviraj Singh, Managing Director, Earthood stresses that there is a need to strengthen the scientific foundation to better understand the relationship between climate change and health outcomes 

Globally, rapid attempts are being made to enhance public healthcare systems and practises. Accordingly, the Indian public healthcare structure is also relentlessly progressing towards advancement through an innovation-driven approach. The government of India is intensively using invention as a weapon to battle various socio-economic complexities. And indeed, with the massive support of the Government of India, public healthcare facilities in the country have reached every hook and corner; urban, rural, and tribal populations are leveraging the benefits of advanced facilities, progressive schemes, and better policies. However, undoubtedly, climate change is one of the biggest threats to global public healthcare structures, human existence, as well as our political, social, and economic systems. Climate change’s severe shifting patterns are inhumanely affecting public health systems.

The world knows that climate change, along with numerous natural and human-made health stressors, impacts human health and disorders in several ways. Some existing health risks will intensify, and newer health hazards will emerge. Public health systems are being severely affected by disorders of biological, ecological, and physical systems, including disruptions occurring everywhere. The health effects of these disturbances comprise increased cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, premature deaths associated with hostile weather events, variations in the occurrence and geographical dispersal of food- and water-borne diseases, and various other infectious ailments, along with threats to mental well-being, among others.

Climate change due to intensifying temperatures, severe weather, mounting sea levels, and rising carbon dioxide levels impacts a huge range of health outcomes. Unpredictable summers, winters, and monsoons severely affect food security, making it impossible to plan for vector control, which eventually impacts even vaccine availability for seasonal influenza. There have been studies that show an El Nino effect on plankton and cholera. Severe shifting patterns result in increased heat cycles, widespread dengue, and other weather-related catastrophes. Some of the most substantial climate change impacts, their consequences on exposures, and the succeeding global health results from these changes in exposures are:

• Severe weather: injuries, fatalities, and mental health impacts
• Air pollution: asthma, cardiovascular disease
• Changes in vector ecology: malaria, dengue, encephalitis, hantavirus, rift valley fever, lyme disease, chikungunya, and West Nile virus
• Increasing allergens: respiratory allergies, asthma
• Water quality impacts: cholera, cryptosporidiosis, campylobacter, leptospirosis, harmful algal blooms
• Water and food supply impacts: malnutrition, diarrheal disease
• Environmental degradation: forced migration, civil conflict, mental health impacts
• Extreme heat, heat-related illness and death, cardiovascular failure

There is extensive scientific unanimity that the ecosphere is shifting. Some of the impacts of rapid climate change are likely to involve more erratic weather, heavy precipitation events, heat waves, droughts, flooding, and more severe storms such as air pollution, sea level rise, and hurricanes. Each of these transformations has the possibility of harmfully affecting health. While climate change is a global issue, its consequences will vary across populations and geographies. Although scientific detailing of the outcomes of climate change is still in the exploration phase, there is an extreme need to plan for prospective health threats. Despite the depth and breadth of efforts, the public health outcomes of climate change remain largely unaddressed.

There is a need to be more stringent, and some of the following basic measures, out of many, could help us control this rapidly growing hazard.

• Conduct and strengthen research to find out information on the health outcomes of climate change for the Indian population.
• Comprehensive data gathering on environmental conditions, disease occurrence, and disease risks related to climate change.
• Capacity building for scientifically predicting health impacts that may be climate related.
• Identification of geographies and populations at higher risk for specific health threats due to extreme environmental events
• Framework to convey the health-associated impacts of climate change, incorporating hazards and approaches to lower them, to the community, policymakers, and healthcare specialists.
• Foster collaborations with relevant government agencies, private corporations, civil society organisations, academia, and global organisations to address health concerns by providing protection related to climate change more efficiently.
• Plan and apply readiness and response plans for health risks occurring due to severe weather events.
• Provide technical support to health departments in implementing domestic and international vigilance instruments correlated to the health impacts of climate change.
• Encourage skilling and training the young, competent workforce to respond to the health risks caused by climate change.
• Industries should focus on sustainability science, promote environmentally friendly manufacturing, and offer climate-conscious products and services. Auditing services for carbon and other GHG offset projects fall under the domain of sustainability and are moving towards the world’s net zero goals. Industries should go for GHG offset auditing and ESG consulting services to encourage climate consciousness. In fact, the fastest-growing healthcare industry should take this into account as a priority.

The recent spread of anthrax cases in Odisha is an infectious and often fatal disease caused by bacillus anthracis. It occurs naturally in the soil and affects domestic and wild animals. It is a zoonotic disease that infects people if they come into contact with infected animals or contaminated animal products. We need to be cautious and shouldn’t harm the environment. There is a need to strengthen the scientific foundation to better understand the relationship between climate change and health outcomes.