Summit County Citizens Voice

Asthma, allergies and infectious disease could surge in warming world

A NASA graphic showing February 2012 temperature anomalies.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Infants, children and the elderly will be the first to experience serious climate change-related health problems, a panel of lung and respiratory specialists said in a recent position paper aimed at helping members respond to an expected surge in asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular disease.

The increase is expected as a result of  rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases. Specific examples include mold spores that previously only were seen in Central America now being found as far north as Vancouver, British Columbia, promoting increases in allergy and asthma, with climate-change conditions implicated. Infectious diseases common in the Mediterranean region now are being seen as far north as Scandinavia, as that area grows warmer.

The paper recommended adoption of public health policies aimed at supporting vulnerable populations during specific climate-change related events, such as heat waves or severe air pollution episodes and other extreme weather events (e.g., extreme rainfall and floods) or rising sea levels and storm surges that challenge or threaten community infrastructure.

“In these proceedings, we address such questions as how climate change may impact the distribution of respiratory disease worldwide, the impact of heat stress and adaptation, and how extreme heat affects the individual and the community,” said Kent Pinkerton, professor of pediatrics at the UC Davis School of Medicine and director of the UC Davis Center for Health and the Environment.

The paper is published online and in print in the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society. While based in the United States the 15,000-member Thoracic Society has members around the globe. The position paper was written by a 10-member committee that included representatives from Europe, Asia, India, the Middle East and Africa.

“Since my research focuses on environmental air pollution and its impact on the respiratory system, my biggest concern has been with issues of air quality,” said Pinkerton, a co-author of the paper and the organizer of the workshop upon which the paper is based. “These include more smoke and particulate matter from more wildfires, which are known to increase in frequency as the climate warms, and the presence of airborne particles from dust storms caused by desertification.”

“There are certain vector-borne diseases caused by certain types of parasites or organisms whose range has expanded and that has been associated with increases in temperature,” Pinkerton said.

Pinkerton said that some of the prospective respiratory health impacts from global climate change will be direct, such as more asthma due to increases in particulate matter in the atmosphere because of desertification, or increases in pollen because of more and extended plant blooms.

“There are individuals who will be much more susceptible to the effects of global climate change than will the members of the general population,” Pinkerton said. “In particular, we know that infants and young children, people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and those who are elderly or who have compromised immune systems will have more difficulties when air quality is poorer.”

The position paper placed heat-related disease resulting from increased frequency and severity of heat waves as the most serious and direct health risk of climate change. Higher surface temperatures, especially in developed urban areas, will promote the formation of greater amounts of ground-level ozone, which has been linked with  asthma, lung cancer and acute lower-respiratory infections.

Filed under: climate and weather, global warming, Health, world news Tagged: | climate change, extreme weather, public health