Health Impacts from Climate Change: The Importance of Public Health Partnerships
This workshop will provide an environment that encourages participants to explore fully the emerging linkages between increasing frequency of high temperature and humidity and increasing regional mortality and morbidity of humans and other species. The driving force behind our effort is to form a climate health partnership in the form of a multidisciplinary consortium to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries in topics directly related to the increasing impact of climate change on human health. Participants are likely to include physicians, climatologists, geneticists, medical anthropologists, epidemiologists and clinical trialists, as well as individuals interested in the effects of climate change on agriculture, nutrition, economics and government policy. This workshop will be useful in the development of future professional activities and collaboration.
One of the most important challenges facing the world is the increasing impact of global warming and water scarcity. While global mean temperature changes have been generally modest (less than 1 degree Celsius), already changes in the extremely hot end of the temperatures today are increasingly being ascribed to climate change. The interface between climate, water availability and disease is seen to be of major importance to our future, not only for spread of infectious diseases but also for diseases associated with dehydration.
Recent work has identified dehydration-associated kidney disease (termed chronic kidney disease of CKD) as the first major epidemic due to climate change, with different regional hot spots in Central America with over 20k deaths, and at several locations in India, Sri Lanka, and Africa, as well as potential hot spots in the agricultural valleys of southern Colorado and southern California. The large increase in CKD in Central America coincides with significant rise in maximum temperatures, particularly in those areas that are climatologically the warmest in the region.
This meeting will help form a climate health partnership in the form of a multidisciplinary consortium to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries in topics directly related to the increasing impact of climate change on human health. Participants are likely to include physicians, climatologists, geneticists, medical anthropologists, epidemiologists and clinical trialists, as well as individuals interested in the effects of climate change on agriculture, nutrition, economics and government policy. The workshop will develop relationships for future professional activities and collaboration.
Agenda
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2:00 pm Chronic Kidney Disease in Agriculture Workers in Guatemala
2:30 pm Environmental Exposures and Chronic Kidney Disease
4:00 pm How Dehydration May Cause Kidney Disease
1:35 pm Community Engagement at the Forefront of Integrated Vector Management in Puerto Rico
Dr. Richard Johnson of the University of Colorado will share results from his collaborative research that investigated how climate change during the Miocene caused a near-extinction of our ancestors, and how certain mutations led to the emergence of a lineage that later became humans and modern apes. Insights from these studies have led to a better understanding of how all animals survive climate change, and also for the diseases that are expected to emerge or worsen in the next century. It also may lead to new approaches to stay healthy with increasing global temperatures.
9:00 am Climate Effects on Obesity and Diabetes: Basic Mechanisms
10:30 am Exercise, the Elite Athlete, and Resistance to the Metabolic Syndrome
8:30 am Framework for Climate Change and Occupational Hazards
10:00 am From Intervention to Policy: Faster than Expected
2:00 pm Anthropology, Climate Change & Health
11:00 am Closing Comments, Anticipated Outcomes & Products
Organizers
Attendees
The attendee list and participant profiles are regularly updated. For information on participant affiliation at the time of workshop, please refer to the historical roster. If you are aware of updates needed to participant or workshop records, please notify AGCI’s workshops team.