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Key words
climate change, adult, children, COPD, asthma, infectious respiratory disease
Abstract
Purpose: Greenhouse gases are driving climate change. This article explores the adverse health effects of climate change on a particularly vulnerable population: children and adults with respiratory conditions.
Approach: This review provides a general overview of the effects of increasing temperatures, extreme weather, desertification, and flooding on asthma, chronic obstructive lung disease, and respiratory infections. We offer suggestions for future research to better understand climate change hazards, policies to support prevention andmitigation efforts targeting climate change, and clinical actions to reduce individual risk.
Findings and Conclusions: Climate change produces a number of changes to the natural and built environments that may potentially increase respiratory disease prevalence, morbidity, and mortality. Nurses might consider focusing their research efforts on reducing the effects of greenhouse gases and in directing policy to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. Nurses can also continue to direct educational and clinical actions to reduce risks for all populations, but most importantly, for our most vulnerable groups.
Clinical Relevance: While advancements have been made in understanding the impact of climate change on respiratory health, nurses can play an important role in reducing the deleterious effects of climate change. This will require a multipronged approach of research, policy, and clinical action.
Nurses, the largest global health workforce group (World Health Organization, 2016b), are critically important to efforts aimed at increasing patient and public awareness of the effects of climate change on human health, anticipating threats to individual health, assessing communities' environmental health vulnerabilities, and lessening the health effects of climate change (Canadian Nursing Association, 2008). Nurses can accomplish these aims through research, practice, and policy that strengthens community resilience, narrows health inequities, and facilitates positive adaptation in the face of climate stressors (Anderko, Davies-Cole, & Strunk, 2014; Goodman, 2015).
Unfortunately, the health threats inherent in climate risk exposures are poorly understood by many nurses (Adlong & Dietsch, 2015), who often see climate change actions as incongruent with their daily work (An°aker, Nilsson, Holmner, & Elf, 2015). Further, education curricula focused on climate change are scant (Barna, Goodman, & Mortimer, 2012; Goodman, 2015; Richardson, Grose, Doman, & Kelsey, 2014; Richardson et al., 2016). To address these gaps, deans from schools of nursing,...