MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Healthcare is responsible for 10% of carbon emissions and additional air pollutants. It has a critical role to play in addressing the public health crisis driven by climate change.
Climate touches everything. These resources will help you understand how climate touches your profession & your role for climate action.
Politeness no longer makes sense and inaction is now negligent. Children are rising up to protect the future. We must now take direct action with them. ~ Dr. Bing Jones, retired haematologist
Medicine & Public Health Articles
Activism and Health Articles
How Standing Rock changed the course of a doctor's life (Yes! Solutions Journalism, 2021)
Allergies and Heat
Fear climate crisis could increase allergy season severity by up to 60% (Guardian, 2021)
Climate change has worsened North America’s pollen season (Carbon Brief, 2020)
Air, Water, and Health Articles
‘Invisible killer’: Fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, research finds (Guardian, 2021)
Research shows disproportionate coronavirus death rates in polluted areas (Mother Jones, 2020)
A Northeast law limited carbon emissions. It also helped kids breathe (Grist, 2020)
Gas powered appliances may be hazardous to your health (Grist, 2020)
Hospital visits declined after sulfur dioxide reductions from coal plants (Inside Climate News, 2020)
Breathing polluted air shortens lives by an average of 3 years (Inside Climate News, 2020)
Study links short term air pollution exposure to hospitalizations (Inside Climate News, 2019)
Climate, Heating, and Health Articles
Burning embers: Synthesis of health impacts of climate change (Environmental Research Letters, 2021)
The life-altering affects heat is having on American children (Guardian, 2021)
Climate change is having widespread health impacts (Scientific American. 2020)
When temperatures soar, dog ticks turn to human flesh (Grist, 2020)
Climate change is killing Americans. Health departments aren’t equipped to respond (Grist, 2020)
World health leaders are calling for a green recovery from coronavirus (Grist, 2020)
Why don’t we treat climate change like a communicable disease? (Grist, 2020)
Health Advocacy, Communication, and Policy Articles
Pandemic and climate solutions will fail without a major focus on mental health: Here’s why (The Hill, 2021)
Health benefits of Paris Agreement could save millions of lives by 2040 (Carbon Brief, 2021)
Engagement with health in national climate change commitments (Lancet, 2021)
Climate action could save ‘millions of lives’ through clean air, diet, and exercise (Guardian, 2021)
Perinatal and Pediatric Health Articles
Plastic particles pass from mothers into foetuses, rat study shows (Guardian, 2021)
Plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises: Toxic chemicals threaten humanity (Guardian, 2021)
Chemicals in plastics damage babies’ brains and must be banned immediately (CNN, 2021)
Air pollution significantly raises risk of infertility, study finds (Guardian, 2021)
Climate change could have a ‘profound’ effect on child malnourishment (Carbon Brief, 2021)
Am I going to regret it? Forever chemicals dilemma for breastfeeding mothers (Guardian, 2021)
Climate change effects on skin: A Q & A with Dr. Markus Boos (Seattle Children’s Hospital, 2019)
Air pollution particles showing up in human placentas, next to the fetus (Inside Climate News, 2019)
2019 Report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate (The Lancet, 2019)
Toxins and Health Articles
The US Military is poisoning communities across the US with toxic chemicals (Guardian, 2021)
Wildfire and Health Articles
Study: Wildfire smoke more harmful to humans than pollution from cars (NPR, 2021)
Microbes are aerosolized and moved around by wildfires smoke (VICE, 2021)
Wildfire smoke is a silent killer and climate change is making it worse (Grist, 2019)
MEDICINE & PUBLIC HEALTH Books
Extreme Weather Events and Human Health (2020)
Climate Change and the People’s Health (2019)
One Planet, One Health (2019)
Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution (2019)
The Invisible Killer: The Rising Global Threat of Air Pollution - And How we Can Fight Back (2019)
Planetary Health: Human Health in an Era of Global Environmental Change (2019)
Climate Change and Air Pollution: The Impact on Human Health in Developed and Developing Countries (2018)
Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change (2018)
Climate Information for Public Health Action (2018)
Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change (2018)
Enviromedics: The Impact of Climate Change on Human Health (2017)
Happier People, Healthier Planet: How Putting Well-Being First Would Help Sustain Life on Earth (2014)
The Health Practitioner’s Guide to Climate Change: Diagnosis and Cure (2009)
Booklets to Download
The State of Climate Adaptation in Public Health: An Assessment of 16 States (Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange, 2019)
Heatwave Guides for Cities (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Federation Crescent Societies, 2019)
Conveying the Human Implications of Climate Change (George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 2016)
MEDICINE & PUBLIC HEALTH Podcasts
Dr. Nicholas Freudenburg on death by capitalism (Make it Plain, 2021)
On the public health case for climate action (Climate Pod, 2020)
Immigration, health and the environment (Raíces Verdes, 2019)
Public Health and Climate Change (America Adapts, 2018)
When climate change makes it hard to breath (Terrestrial/NPR, 2017)
Hidden health hazards of climate change (Climate One)
How environmental racism persists through de facto segregation (Green Dreamer)
The 'deadly monopolies' of the medical-industrial-complex (Green Dreamer)
Taking a more holistic view on personal and planetary health (Green Dreamer)
Affordable housing, public health, & environmental justice (Green Dreamer)
Climate change as a public health threat affecting everyone (Green Dreamer)
Critique of health and safety guidelines of governmental agencies (Green Dreamer)
The role of doctors in leading action on climate change (Green Dreamer)
Using litigation and the courts to protect human health and our planet (Green Dreamer)
How chemicals leach out of plastics to impact our health (Green Dreamer)
A stronger mind and body to support a healthier planet (Green Dreamer)
MEDICINE & PUBLIC HEALTH Videos
Helen Redmond -- Should you talk to your doctor about climate change? (TedX, 2020)
Dr. Kathy Kulus and Dr. John Mahowald -- Climate change is making you sick (TedX, 2020)
Portable air sensors are changing the way we see air pollution (Grist, 2019)
What are PFAS and why are people freaking out about them? (Grist, 2019)
What does wildfire smoke mean for people who breathe it? (Grist, 2018)
Dr. Donald Warne -- All my relations--a traditional Lakota approach to health equity (TedX, 2014)
In King County, pollution makes zip codes predictors of your health (Crosscut)
