{"id":19175,"date":"2021-07-22T16:22:10","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T21:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepapergown.zocdoc.com\/?p=19175"},"modified":"2026-02-05T04:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T09:17:32","slug":"what-can-doctors-do-about-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zocdoc.com\/blog\/advice\/what-can-doctors-do-about-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"What Can Doctors Do About Climate Change?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in 2017, emergency rooms <\/span>were overwhelmed by patients<\/span><\/a> with burns, cuts, bruises and broken bones. Other types of health problems showed up later on, says Dr. Adlia M. Ebeid, director of pharmacy services at San Jose Clinic in Houston, a “safety-net clinic” that helps underserved patients in the community access care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After the storm, the clinic’s staff checked on families in the small town of Rosenberg, Texas. <\/span>With up to two feet of water sitting in their houses, they’d started to develop mold and respiratory disorders. <\/span>In response, the clinic sent in hundreds of inhalers.\u00a0\u201cI personally was surprised they did not realize the impact this [flooding] could have on them, their children and their health,\u201d Ebied says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most obvious health effects of natural disasters are the immediate deaths, injuries and acute trauma addressed through emergency relief efforts. But<\/span> climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and intense. One consequence<\/span> of this new normal is health complications, including respiratory, autoimmune and cardiovascular disorders that emerge after flood waters recede and wildfires fan out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To help get ahead of and manage these lingering health issues, an expert-led <\/span>movement<\/span><\/a> wants to bring climate change into the exam room. The push is for <\/span>doctors and other types of clinicians<\/span> to start screening for climate change\u2013related health risks during appointments, making sure that patients explicitly understand the role climate change plays in their health. \u201cThe stunning thing for me is that in 2021, we don’t have any guidelines for these clinics on how to keep their patients safe,\u201d says Dr. Aaron Bernstein, interim director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “That was not particularly OK in the past, but it’s certainly not OK now.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Sick planet, sick people?<\/h3>\n

Natural disasters aren’t a new threat. But extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe. While numerous factors might contribute to a singular event, climate change is the driving force behind the larger pattern of supercharged wildfires<\/a>, floods<\/a> and heat waves<\/a>. The “why” always comes back to rising temperatures. The earth’s surfaces (air and ocean) are getting warmer because fuel emissions are trapping more heat in the atmosphere. This phenomenon creates ideal conditions for extreme weather in numerous ways. Warmer air traps more moisture, priming hurricanes and other storms to produce heavier rain. Meanwhile, higher average temperatures fuel longer, more intense wildfire seasons in the Western U.S., including causing winter snow to melt sooner and leaving forests and soils drier, perfect for kindling.<\/p>\n

Experts are working in real time to understand how extreme weather events cause a variety of long-term health impacts. The connection is clearer for some issues than others, says Mariel Fonteyn, associate director of emergency preparedness at Americares. Some lingering health consequences that can stem from a few types of extreme weather include:<\/span><\/p>\n