Climate Change and Human Health Impacts in the United States: An Update on the Results of the U.S. National Assessment

Ebi, Kristie L.; Mills, David M.; Smith, Joel B.; Grambsch, Anne

The executive summary of the Health Sector Assessment (HSA) was published in 2000 (Patz et al. 2000) and the results for the different health outcomes were published in 2001 Greenough et al. 2001; Gubler et al. 2001; McGeehin and Mirabelli 2001 ; National Assessment Synthesis Team, U.S. Global Change Research Program 2001; Rose et al. 2001 ). The HSA focused on five categories of health outcomes: temperature-related morbidity and mortality, the health impacts of extreme weather events (e.g., storms and floods), health outcomes associated with air pollution, water-and food-borne diseases, and vector-and rodent-borne diseases. Each outcome team sought to address how climate change might affect the burden of disease, identify specific strategies and measures needed to effectively adapt, and clarify key knowledge gaps that must be filled to better understand the possible impacts of climate variability and change on human health . The integrated assessment approach that was used reviewed a wide range of literature on climate and health, relied on the expert judgment of the health sector team and those with whom they consulted, and incorporated, where available, some limited modeling of the projected impacts of climate on health. Analyses of the roles of population vulnerability and adaptation were woven throughout the assessment.