title: Climatic change: possible impacts on human health.
abstract: This paper addresses a number of problems relating to climatic change and human health. Following an introduction outlining the overarching issues, a short summary is given on climatic change and its anthropogenic causes. The rest of the paper then focuses on the direct and indirect impacts of global climatic change on health. Direct effects comprise changes in the hygrothermal stress response of humans, atmospheric pollution, water quality and availability; indirect effects include the potential for the spread of vector-borne diseases outside their current range. The paper concludes with some comments on possible response strategies aimed at alleviating the adverse effects of climatic change on human health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. martin.beniston@unifr.ch
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beniston
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa / Q000453:epidemiology; D002980:Climate; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004782:Environmental Health / Q000639:trends*; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005544:Forecasting; D014943:Global Health; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D006304:Health Status; D018882:Heat Stress Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D008288:Malaria / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D011634:Public Health / Q000639:trends*