Climate’s health toll studied

Researchers offer ‘guarded’ prognosis in world checkup

WASHINGTON — Climate change is hurting people’s health a bit more than previously thought, but there’s hope that Earth — and populations — can heal, a group of doctors and other experts said.

The poor and elderly are most threatened by worsening climate change, but there remain “glimmers of progress” especially after the 2015 Paris agreement to limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study published Monday in the British medical journal Lancet.

Comparing the report to a health checkup, four researchers and several outside experts described Earth’s prognosis as “guarded.”

“There are some very severe warning signs, but there

are some hopeful indicators, too,” said co-author Dr. Howard Frumkin, a professor of environmental health at the University of Washington. “Given the right treatment and aggressive efforts to prevent things from getting worse, I think there’s hope.”

The report highlighted health problems stemming from more frequent heat waves, disease spread by insects, air pollution and other woes. While the disasters have been costly, deaths haven’t been increasing because society is doing a better but more expensive job of adjusting to the changing conditions, the researchers noted.

A team of 63 doctors, public health officials and scientists from around the world wrote what they considered the first of a regular monitoring of the health of the planet, similar to having a “finger on the pulse of the patient,” said Dr. Hugh Montgomery, an intensive care specialist and director of the University College of London’s Institute for Health and Performance.

Based on 40 indicators, the study said, “the human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible.”

While other disease rates are dropping, cases of dengue fever — a mosquito-borne disease — have doubled every decade since 1990.

The study also highlighted the increasing likelihood of food shortages.