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

Many of the recent publications summarized the health impacts and explored the successes and failures of warning and response systems for specific extreme weather events, particularly tornadoes and hurricanes. We identified no new publications that estimated changes in the future frequency and severity of extreme events in the United States. Kunkel et al. (1999) reviewed trends in extreme events in the United States but stopped short of making projections. Similarly, Pielke and Downton (2000) found that flooding in the United States might have increased, whereas Easterling et al. (2000) found increases in minimum temperatures and extreme precipitation that may have increased the number of deaths from flooding and excess heat. Blindauer et al. (1999) examined the range of health outcomes associated with the potential health impacts of blizzards. Their conclusions confirmed the finding that blizzards elevate the incidence of myocardial infarction (i.e., heart attacks). Several studies (Curriero et al. 2001; Hunt 2002; Kistemann et al. 2002) examined the potential health impacts of extreme precipitation events, focusing on their potential to affect contaminant loading to water systems. The results are summarized further below.