Global Climate Changes, Natural Disasters, and Travel Health Risks

Health risks, present and future, from global climate change.

There is now no serious scientific debate: human actions are changing the world’s climate, and are set to do so at an increasing rate in coming decades. 2 Urgent action is now required to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (the dominant long acting greenhouse gas), if global temperature rises are not to exceed 2°C—the International Energy Authority warns that “the door to 2°C is closing.” Indee...

Global Increase in Climate-Related Disasters

Intense climate-related disasters—floods, storms, droughts, and heat waves—have been on the rise worldwide. At the same time and coupled with an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, temperatures, on average, have been rising, and are becoming more variable and more extreme. Rainfall has also been more variable and more extreme. Is there an ominous link between the glo...

Travel Agency Awareness of the Health Risks of International Travel; A Pilot Study

Introduction: Travel agencies may be consulted by intending travelers seeking pre-travel health advice. Travel agents should be equipped to deal with such queries and have access to a source of high quality travel health advice. This study aimed to establish the level of knowledge of travel health risks among Irish travel agencies. Methods: A web-based su...

Natural disasters, armed conflict, and public health.

Climate change and natural disasters – integrating science and practice to protect health

BACKGROUND Hydro-meteorological disasters are the focus of this paper. The authors examine, to which extent climate change increases their frequency and intensity. METHODS Review of IPCC-projections of climate-change related extreme weather events and related literature on health effects. RESULTS Projections show that climate change is likely to increase the frequency, intensity, duration, ...