The impact of climate change on respiratory health: current understanding and knowledge gaps

Manish Joshi; Anita Joshi; Thaddeus Bartter

doi:10.1097/MCP.0000000000001145

The impact of climate change on respiratory health: current understanding and knowledge gaps

Curr Opin Pulm Med. 2024 Dec 3. doi: 10.1097/MCP.0000000000001145. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Manish Joshi^{1

2}, Anita Joshi³, Thaddeus Bartter^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
² Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.
³ Fay W Boozman College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.

PMID: 39620702
DOI: 10.1097/MCP.0000000000001145

Abstract

Purpose of review: To present an overview of the impact of climate change upon human respiratory health.

Recent findings: Climate change is directly impacting air quality. Particulate matter clearly increases mortality rates. Ozone, a longstanding suspect in climate-related injury, turns out not to have the major impact that had been projected at current levels of exposure. The key factors in global warming have been clearly identified, but while these factors collectively cause deleterious changes, a close look at the literature shows that it is unclear to what extent each factor individually is a driver of a specific process. This article summarizes some of those studies.

Summary: A better understanding of which components of climate change most impact human health is needed in order to re-define environmental standards. PM2.5 needs to be broken down by chemical composition to study the differential impacts of different sources of PM2.5. The detection and study of climate-related changes in respiratory infectious diseases is in a state of relative infancy.