Stephen Wagener

Predictions and Projections of Health Impacts in a Changing Climate

Abstract

Humans are organisms within ecologies, like other inhabitants of Earth. On a warming planet, conditions that impact human health will change in likelihood of appearance and severity. As both air temperature and humidity increase, the incidence of heat stress will impact vulnerable human populations. Arthropods that act as disease vectors will become more abundant and their ranges will spread, as will the pathogens that they carry. Tick-borne diseases are of particular concern in the northeast of the US, as new vector species move into the region.