How much does climate change cost health care?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines climate change as "the greatest threat to the health of humanity" and this poses both a problem of inequality and spending on health
Pollution, high temperatures or floods. Nature, due to man's lack of care for it, has become increasingly unpredictable and a bringer of catastrophes. But the disasters caused by climate change, in addition to affecting material goods, also affect health, causing an increase in pathologies and hospitalizations, often not designed to deal with all this.
So here's how climate change affects health and how much it costs health care.
THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HEALTH
The heat and the floods of this summer that is ending have been a real challenge for both health systems and staff, already under pressure from Covid. Heatstroke, asthma, heart attacks, injuries and illnesses related to violent storms have been recorded by hospitals and emergency rooms around the world.
"It's challenging because it's happening fast," Beth Schenk, executive director of environmental management for the health system in Providence, Washington, told Axios .
HOW MUCH IT WILL COST TO ADJUST HEALTH TO CLIMATE CHANGE
The extreme heat of this summer in the Pacific Northwest, Axios reports, put a strain on the cooling systems of buildings and forced, in some cases, health facilities to cut services as emergency rooms filled up due to diseases caused by heat.
According to experts, the growing threats to human health attributable to climate change only promise to become more complex and costly, and health systems, in order not to succumb, will be forced to make major changes.
Axios , citing a report by The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, says that "the increase in health care costs is already estimated to exceed $ 800 billion a year."
HEALTHCARE COSTS DUE TO POOR AIR QUALITY
According to data in the report, fine particles in the air caused 107,000 premature deaths in the United States in 2011 and cost health care approximately $ 820 billion.
Smog, on the other hand, in the United States, in 2002, would have been responsible for 795 premature deaths, 485 emergency room visits and 4,150 hospital admissions related to asthma, 365,468 other outpatient visits and it is estimated that 7.9 billion dollars were needed. for health.
THE HEALTHCARE COSTS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES TRANSMITTED BY VECTORS
But climate change can also be responsible for changes to the natural lifestyle of some animals, such as ticks and mosquitoes, which by coming into contact with humans more easily can increase cases of Lyme and West Nile disease.
The report calculated that Lyme disease in the United States resulted in the diagnosis, treatment and management of 240-440,000 new cases in 2008, resulting in hospital, outpatient and pharmaceutical costs ranging from 860 million to 1.6. billions of dollars.
While as regards the West Nile virus, 89 premature deaths, 1,628 hospital admissions, 2,680 emergency room visits, 28,303 other outpatient visits were identified in Texas in 2012 for a cost to health of 1.1 billion dollars.
HEALTHCARE COSTS RELATED TO EXTREME CLIMATE EVENTS
Finally, some examples of the impact of climate change on health related to extreme climate events. The heat wave that hit Wisconsin in 2012 caused 27 deaths, 155 hospitalizations, 1,620 emergency room visits, 57 other outpatient visits for a total of $ 263 million.
Smoke from fires in the United States in 2010 resulted in 6,200 annual hospital admissions for respiratory diseases, 1,700 deaths, in addition to the cost of $ 16 billion to health care.
And Hurricane Sandy that hit the states of New York, New Jersey and neighboring states in 2012 was responsible for 273 premature deaths, 6,602 hospital admissions, 4,673 emergency room visits, 2,444 outpatient visits to the modest sum of 3.3 billion. dollars.
WHICH DISEASES MAY BE LINKED TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change has also been linked to an increased risk of kidney disease, obesity and diabetes, transmission of infectious diseases, some cancers, and poorer mental health.
"We are learning more and more that the burning of fossil fuels is contributing to a massive epidemic of chronic diseases around the world that exceeds AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined," Gary Cohen, president and founder of Gary Cohen, told Axios . Health Care Without Harm, a group that focuses on reducing the carbon footprint of health care.
IT IS ALSO AN EQUITY PROBLEM
But in addition to the costs associated with renovating facilities, the emergence of new diseases or an increase in those already known, the impact of climate change on health also poses a problem related to inequalities because some communities are more at risk than others.
As Seema Wadhwa, Kaiser Permanente's executive director for environmental management said: “Climate change impacts everyone. But it doesn't impact everyone equally ”.
For example, Axios recalls, elderly and immunocompromised people are more vulnerable to the impacts of high temperatures and poor air quality, while people dependent on insulin or dialysis may be more at risk in the event of a power failure. or blocking of transport.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/quanto-costano-i-cambiamenti-climatici-alla-sanita/ on Sat, 24 Sep 2022 06:09:25 +0000.