Embedding Sustainability across our Health Service

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Discover more about the Impacts that climate change has on human health and the governments response of implementing measures to combat climate threats

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The Impacts of climate change on Human Health

Some of the biggest hazards for human health are directly associated with climate change.
These “hazards” can be grouped into two distinct categories namely: direct and indirect exposures.

Direct exposures include:

• Heat-related conditions and deaths caused by sunstroke;
• Floods and storms (drowning), hypothermia, injuries and infectious diseases;
• Mental Health (anxiety and depression)

Indirect exposures include:

• Water quality (e.g. cholera and cryptosporidiosis due to bacterial and parasitic water borne infections);
• Air quality (asthma and chronic bronchitis);
• Change in land use;
• Ecological change