A recent study published by Nature Climate Change (1) found that 58% of infectious diseases confronted by humanity worldwide have been at some point aggravated by climatic hazards. Ongoing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are intensifying numerous climatic hazards of the Earth’s climate system, which in turn can exacerbate human pathogenic diseases. On the one hand,…
The Spanish Ministry of Health has published «Guidelines for Planning Healthy Cities». This document intends to serve as a tool to help people involved in the planning of urban environments at the local level. It provides easy-to-follow guidelines, which can be adapted to any situation, aiming to reduce health inequities. The document includes three lines…
Comment to article: Piguet E. Linking climate change, environmental degradation, and migration: An update after 10 years. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang. 2022 Jan 1;13(1). The author updates the review he conducted ten years ago analysing the literature available on this topic, and proposes a number of new questions that are crucial to improving the…
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution, on Thursday 28 July 2022, declaring access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, a universal human right. This declaration will change the very nature of the international human rights law. The text recognizes that the impact of climate change, the unsustainable management and use of natural…
The Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge publishes the National Air Quality Index (ICA), which provides real-time, easy-to-understand data on the quality of air measured by the monitoring stations from the national surveillance network. The index also provides health-based recommendations for the general population and sensitive populations and allows you to track…
Born with the mission of moving towards a new generation of chemical risk assessment methods in order to protect the health and the environment. The European Partnership for the Assessment of Risk from Chemicals (PARC) started on May 2022 aiming to advance research, share knowledge and improve skills in chemical risk assessment in order to…
The journal Gigabyte (1), with support from the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (2), hosted at the World Health Organization, has published a special series of 11 articles, representing the work of authors from 31 countries and territories, which describe datasets on vectors of human vector-borne diseases. Specifically, the special series…
Global warming is causing extreme heat events resulting in increased morbidity and mortality in locations unaccustomed to this phenomenon. It is well known that episodes of extreme temperature have significant impacts on health and, hence, have the potential to overwhelm health systems. Evidence shows how the increase in global temperature has affected the health of…
Effects of local factors on adaptation to heat in Spain (1983–2018). There is a biological (physiological) acclimatisation of the population to heat, but there is also a number of other individual factors (adaptation) which make certain populations more vulnerable to heat than others. Factors that influence the vulnerability of a population to heat include…
Comment to article: Are climate change and mental health correlated? Reference: Ramadan, A.M.H. y Ataallah, A.G. (2021) Are climate change and mental health correlated? General Psychiatry 34, e100648. 10.1136/gpsych-2021-100648 What is known about this subject? There is robust evidence regarding the relationship between climate change and mental health. Mental health can be affected directly…