Article type
Abstract
Background:
Climate change poses severe health risks globally, especially for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite increased efforts to understand their association, evidence gaps remain, especially for LMICs. To address this, we analyzed current evidence on the health impacts of climate change, mapped mitigation and adaptation strategies, and summarized the impact of interventions delivered within LMICs.
Methodology:
We conducted a scoping review of the literature from January 2017 to May 2022 using the evidence gap map (EGM) methodology, with an emphasis on climate-related hazards and health outcomes in LMICs. We identified 112 eligible reviews. Subsequently, we extracted primary studies from reviews that had more than 50% LMIC studies reporting on associations or adaptation and mitigation strategies for climate hazard and health outcomes. We conducted our analysis by generating heat maps to visualize the volume of evidence highlighting associations between each climate hazard and health outcome and created gap maps to analyze the type of association between climate hazards and health outcomes. Additionally, we also identified and summarized the adaptation and mitigation strategies and interventions specific to LMICs.
Results:
Our results show that the most frequently studied climate hazard and health outcome are extreme heat and infectious diseases, whereas dust storms and heat-related illnesses are understudied and require further research. Extreme heat was found to have a substantial negative impact on several health outcomes, such as mortality, heat-related illnesses, noncommunicable diseases, chronic illnesses, and mental health problems. Variations in mean temperature show mixed associations with several health outcomes, including infectious diseases and mortality. Droughts are linked to nutritional outcomes, highlighting implications for food security. Our analysis also reveals negative associations between temperature changes, extreme heat events, and droughts with certain infectious diseases. Although numerous adaptation and mitigation strategies were proposed in existing literature, our study highlights a shortage of interventions tailored specifically for LMICs.
Conclusion:
Although there is increasing evidence linking climate change to adverse health effects, especially in LMICs, there remains a dearth of interventions to minimize the dire consequences on human health. We must now shift our attention toward designing and implementing effective and context-specific interventions in these countries.
Climate change poses severe health risks globally, especially for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite increased efforts to understand their association, evidence gaps remain, especially for LMICs. To address this, we analyzed current evidence on the health impacts of climate change, mapped mitigation and adaptation strategies, and summarized the impact of interventions delivered within LMICs.
Methodology:
We conducted a scoping review of the literature from January 2017 to May 2022 using the evidence gap map (EGM) methodology, with an emphasis on climate-related hazards and health outcomes in LMICs. We identified 112 eligible reviews. Subsequently, we extracted primary studies from reviews that had more than 50% LMIC studies reporting on associations or adaptation and mitigation strategies for climate hazard and health outcomes. We conducted our analysis by generating heat maps to visualize the volume of evidence highlighting associations between each climate hazard and health outcome and created gap maps to analyze the type of association between climate hazards and health outcomes. Additionally, we also identified and summarized the adaptation and mitigation strategies and interventions specific to LMICs.
Results:
Our results show that the most frequently studied climate hazard and health outcome are extreme heat and infectious diseases, whereas dust storms and heat-related illnesses are understudied and require further research. Extreme heat was found to have a substantial negative impact on several health outcomes, such as mortality, heat-related illnesses, noncommunicable diseases, chronic illnesses, and mental health problems. Variations in mean temperature show mixed associations with several health outcomes, including infectious diseases and mortality. Droughts are linked to nutritional outcomes, highlighting implications for food security. Our analysis also reveals negative associations between temperature changes, extreme heat events, and droughts with certain infectious diseases. Although numerous adaptation and mitigation strategies were proposed in existing literature, our study highlights a shortage of interventions tailored specifically for LMICs.
Conclusion:
Although there is increasing evidence linking climate change to adverse health effects, especially in LMICs, there remains a dearth of interventions to minimize the dire consequences on human health. We must now shift our attention toward designing and implementing effective and context-specific interventions in these countries.