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Nathan Y. Chan,¹ Kristie L. Ebi,² Fraser Smith,³ Thomas F. Wilson,² and Anne E. Smith⁴

¹Talus Solutions, Inc., Mountain View, CA 94041 USA
²EPRI, Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA
³Datafusion, Inc., San Francisco, CA 94107 USA
⁴Charles River Associates, Inc., Washington, DC 20005 USA

Abstract

Many potential human health effects have been hypothesized to result either directly or indirectly from global climate change. Changes in the prevalence and spread of infectious diseases are some of the most widely cited potential effects of climate change, and could have significant consequences for human health as well as economic and societal impacts. These changes in disease incidence would be mediated through biologic, ecologic, sociologic, and epidemiologic processes that interact with each other and which may themselves be influenced by climate change. Although hypothesized infectious disease effects have been widely discussed, there have not yet been thorough quantitative studies addressing the many processes at work. In part this is because of the complexity of the many indirect and feedback interactions or mechanisms that bear on all aspects of the climate issue. It also results from the difficulty of including the multitude of always-changing determinants of these diseases. This paper proposes a framework for an integrated assessment of the impacts of climate change on infectious diseases. The framework allows identification of potentially important indirect interactions or mechanisms, identification of important research gaps, and a means of integrating targeted research from a variety of disciplines into an enhanced understanding of the whole system. Key words: climate change, infectious disease, integrated assessment, multidisciplinary framework, vector-borne disease. Environ Health Perspect 107:329-337 (1999) . [Online 23 March 1999]

http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1999/107p329-337chan/ abstract.html

Address correspondence to K.L. Ebi, Environment Division, EPRI, 3412 Hillview Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304-1395 USA.

The authors would like to thank David Bradley, Mark Wilson, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This work was supported by EPRI under contract WO4420-01.

Received 2 October 1998 ; accepted 18 February 1999.