Recent emerging trends in the health impacts of climate change and learnings from COVID-19

This annual summary of climate change global health impacts revealed:​

• Increasing association between climate change and its associated health impacts in research and policymaking​

• Increase in a range of climate-change-related health hazards​

• Energy related emissions rebounded 6% after a 5% Covid-19 decrease

The Lancet medical journal summarises annual health indicators affected by climate change within five main categories. The indicators were measured before [1], during [2] and after [3] the Covid-19 pandemic, with annual records focused on three dimensions:​

[1] Prior to the pandemic the report focused on the experiences of a child born in 2019. ​

[2] The 2020 report applied the lessons learned from tackling Covid-19 in the short term to improve climate change health outcomes in long term. ​

[3] In 2022, the growing awareness of the health dimensions of climate change was highlighted as an opportunity to “enable an accelerated response”.​

This brief describes changes in trends of these health indicators over the 2019-2022 period.

Read the full brief

Related links

• Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health (CUSSH) project

Image credit

Unsplash: Robina Weermeijer