Effects of Climate Change on Human Health: Current and future impacts

Principal Investigators: Adel Hanna, Karin Yeatts, Fred Henderson, Richard Smith, Peter Robinson, Aijun Xiu, Zhengyuan Zhu and Sarav Arunachalam
Carolina Environmental Program; Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology; School of Medicine; Geography; Statistics and Operations Research

The research project is defining more precisely the interrelationships among (a) changes in climate and meteorological conditions, (b) air pollution, and (c) heat- and cold-related morbidity severe enough to warrant clinical contact. A secondary goal is to evaluate heat-related morbidity in a vulnerable population: children and adults under economic disadvantage. We propose a novel approach that views climate trends and the associated weather in terms of eight identified air-mass/weather types. We hypothesize that such air masses and the corresponding air quality conditions will have different health impacts on humans, which can be quantified based on statistical analyses of the correlates among the meteorological, climate, air quality, and health data.

The work consists of the following steps: (1) Characterize weather patterns and circulation types over the state of North Carolina; (2) examine temporal and regional variability in meteorological and climatological patterns of the state of North Carolina to identify abnormalities related to climate fluctuation, including weather patterns related to events such as El Nino, and to describe their relationship to air pollution; (3) identify meteorological and climatological correlates of variability in air pollution across the state's highly variable geographic regions over a period of ten years to define the year-to-year reproducibility of the meteorological - air pollution relationship, and to assess changing trends in the relationship over time; (4) establish two mordibity databases, one of hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease, asthma, heat syncope and influenza among all North Carolina residents, and a second database of emergency room visits, physician visits, and costs for the same disease outcomes for Medicaid recipients; (5) address the potential mismatch in the scale of climate, air quality and health data bases to insure the validity of the statistical correlations among various parameters; (6) correlate the occurrence of health data with changes in meteorological and air quality parameters to define the relative risk and attributable fraction of asthma and cardiovascular morbidity in relation to air pollution; (7) apply these predictive statistical models to three geographic regions within the state (mountains, Piedmont and coastal plain) to determine whether the relationship between climate changes and heat- and cold-related morbidity varies in different geographic frameworks (e.g., urban vs. rural agricultural vs. rural non-agricultural areas); (8) examine the use of the global climate and air quality modeling systems to address future regional health impacts of climate variations; and (9) provide an assessment of uncertainty in quantifying the potential impact of climate variability on health using the proposed data and modeling analyses.

We anticipate that the characteristics of the climate - air pollution relationship across North Carolina over time will be generalizable throughout the US, and that the study will yield important insights regarding the impact of climate change and air pollution on heat- and cold-related morbidity, thus advancing our knowledge of the health effects of climate change and their predictability. Findings on applying environmental and climate data to decrease heat- and cold-related morbidity could result in a substantial public health impact, not just in North Carolina but throughout the United States.

North Carolina population map showing the 12 cities/centers to be used in this study.