Forging links in the climate-health chain: A conceptual model for climate change and human health indicators

Abstract:

Environmental health indicators, by monitoring current status, tracking trends over time, and detecting changes in environmental exposures, risks, and health outcomes, provide critical information for stimulating and assessing the effectiveness of public health and environmental policy interventions.

Climate change poses considerable challenges to developing a system of indicators because of the complexity of the exposure pathways involved. The Global Change Research Program has undertaken an initiative to develop an integrated system of indicators for climate change and health. This effort builds on existing climate change and health indicators developed by various federal agencies and other organizations. Central to this initiative is formulating a framework that integrates changes along multiple causal pathways of health outcomes. By considering indicators in a more integrated systems framework, it is anticipated that better understanding of trends and identification of opportunities for health protective interventions will result.

This presentation will introduce the conceptual framework for an indicator system for climate change. This framework involves a multi-dimensional system of pathways. Within each pathway, linked indicators describe the primary climate drivers, consequent environmental states and human exposures and ultimate human health outcomes. Each pathway is also associated with indicators of population susceptibility and implementation of adaptation measures. This presentation will also provide illustrative examples applying this conceptual framework to specific climate-sensitive health outcomes such as waterborne Vibrio infection and vector-borne West Nile Virus infection.