Potential Climate Change Impacts

Health Impacts

Direct weather-related mortality:

• climate change is expected to increase the frequency of very hot days
• during heat waves, deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses also increase
• winter mortality may decrease, but not expected to offset summer mortality increases

Infectious Diseases:

• The geographic range and life-cycles of pathogens and vectors (e.g., mosquitos) which transmit disease are affected by climate
• Climate change would, in aggregate, increase the potential transmission of many vector-borne diseases
• Outbreaks of infectious diseases have been associated with specific weather patterns (Malaria, hotter and more humid; Hantavirus, drought + wet spring; etc.)