image: This week, the first papers in PLOS Medicine's Special Issue on Climate Change and Health are being published.
This week, we see the first papers in PLOS Medicine's Special Issue on Climate Change and Health being published, advised by Guest Editors Jonathan Patz, the Director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the John P. Holton Chair in Health and the Environment with appointments in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Population Health Sciences, USA and Madeleine Thomson, a Senior Research Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) and Senior Scholar at the Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University, New York, USA.
In a research article, Christopher Weyant of Stanford University, USA and colleagues predict reduced crop nutritional content and subsequent health disparities due to increased carbon dioxide levels associated with climate change. In their country-level modelling study, the authors incorporate estimates of climate change, crop nutrient concentrations, dietary patterns and disease risk into a model of iron and zinc deficiency. Their estimates predict a disease burden of approximately 125.8 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) globally over the period from 2015 to 2050, disproportionately affecting South-East Asian and sub-Saharan African countries.
In a Perspective article, Kristie Ebi of the University of Washington, USA and Lewis Ziska of the Department of Agriculture-ARS, Adaptive Cropping Systems Laboratory, Mississippi, USA continue the theme of crop nutrition in a changing climate and how rising carbon dioxide concentrations and climate change are expected to decrease the quality, quantity, and availability of rice, wheat, potatoes and other staple crops. They outline major knowledge gaps and investments needed to protect population health, particularly among the most vulnerable.
Turning to the effects of climate change on demands for increased air conditioning, a primary adaptation to climate change, David Abel of the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA and colleagues predict future mortality associated with increased emissions from power plants caused by demand for air conditioning. Their modelling study considers different climate increases with or without adaptation. They predict increases of 4.8% and 8.7% respectively for particulate- and ozone-associated deaths above climate change impacts alone. Policy advisors and building planners may need to consider energy conservation, building design and other measures to tackle future dependence on buildings' cooling systems.
China is the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter and the most populated country, and its population structure is undergoing change and aging. In a study looking at ozone emissions and population change projections, Patrick Kinney of Boston University, USA and Kai Chen of Helmholtz Institute, Munich, Germany show future changes in ozone-related acute mortality from 2013-2015 to 2053-2055 under different climate and population change scenarios in 104 cities across China. Climate change and an aging population may lead to increases of 1-4 fold for ozone-related deaths in 2053-2055. Mitigation policies are urgently needed.
The Special Issue will provide a venue for data-rich research focused on climate-related impacts, adaptation and mitigation, with research and discussion articles appearing over the next few weeks.