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      Health effects of climate change: an overview of systematic reviews

      systematic-review

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          Abstract

          Objectives

          We aimed to develop a systematic synthesis of systematic reviews of health impacts of climate change, by synthesising studies’ characteristics, climate impacts, health outcomes and key findings.

          Design

          We conducted an overview of systematic reviews of health impacts of climate change. We registered our review in PROSPERO (CRD42019145972). No ethical approval was required since we used secondary data. Additional data are not available.

          Data sources

          On 22 June 2019, we searched Medline, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Embase, Cochrane and Web of Science.

          Eligibility criteria

          We included systematic reviews that explored at least one health impact of climate change.

          Data extraction and synthesis

          We organised systematic reviews according to their key characteristics, including geographical regions, year of publication and authors’ affiliations. We mapped the climate effects and health outcomes being studied and synthesised major findings. We used a modified version of A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews-2 (AMSTAR-2) to assess the quality of studies.

          Results

          We included 94 systematic reviews. Most were published after 2015 and approximately one-fifth contained meta-analyses. Reviews synthesised evidence about five categories of climate impacts; the two most common were meteorological and extreme weather events. Reviews covered 10 health outcome categories; the 3 most common were (1) infectious diseases, (2) mortality and (3) respiratory, cardiovascular or neurological outcomes. Most reviews suggested a deleterious impact of climate change on multiple adverse health outcomes, although the majority also called for more research.

          Conclusions

          Most systematic reviews suggest that climate change is associated with worse human health. This study provides a comprehensive higher order summary of research on health impacts of climate change. Study limitations include possible missed relevant reviews, no meta-meta-analyses, and no assessment of overlap. Future research could explore the potential explanations between these associations to propose adaptation and mitigation strategies and could include broader sociopsychological health impacts of climate change.

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          Most cited references122

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          The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises

          For the Chinese, French, German, and Spanish translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.
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            The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate

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              Critical Review of Health Impacts of Wildfire Smoke Exposure

              Background: Wildfire activity is predicted to increase in many parts of the world due to changes in temperature and precipitation patterns from global climate change. Wildfire smoke contains numerous hazardous air pollutants and many studies have documented population health effects from this exposure. Objectives: We aimed to assess the evidence of health effects from exposure to wildfire smoke and to identify susceptible populations. Methods: We reviewed the scientific literature for studies of wildfire smoke exposure on mortality and on respiratory, cardiovascular, mental, and perinatal health. Within those reviewed papers deemed to have minimal risk of bias, we assessed the coherence and consistency of findings. Discussion: Consistent evidence documents associations between wildfire smoke exposure and general respiratory health effects, specifically exacerbations of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Growing evidence suggests associations with increased risk of respiratory infections and all-cause mortality. Evidence for cardiovascular effects is mixed, but a few recent studies have reported associations for specific cardiovascular end points. Insufficient research exists to identify specific population subgroups that are more susceptible to wildfire smoke exposure. Conclusions: Consistent evidence from a large number of studies indicates that wildfire smoke exposure is associated with respiratory morbidity with growing evidence supporting an association with all-cause mortality. More research is needed to clarify which causes of mortality may be associated with wildfire smoke, whether cardiovascular outcomes are associated with wildfire smoke, and if certain populations are more susceptible. Citation: Reid CE, Brauer M, Johnston FH, Jerrett M, Balmes JR, Elliott CT. 2016. Critical review of health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure. Environ Health Perspect 124:1334–1343; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409277
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMJ Open
                BMJ Open
                bmjopen
                bmjopen
                BMJ Open
                BMJ Publishing Group (BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR )
                2044-6055
                2021
                9 June 2021
                : 11
                : 6
                : e046333
                Affiliations
                [1 ]departmentPrairie Climate Centre , The University of Winnipeg , Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
                [2 ]departmentFaculty of Medicine , Université Laval , Quebec, QC, Canada
                [3 ]VITAM Research Centre for Sustainable Health , Quebec, QC, Canada
                [4 ]CHUQ Research Centre , Quebec, QC, Canada
                [5 ]Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute , Toronto, Ontario, Canada
                [6 ]departmentDalla Lana School of Public Health , University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, Canada
                Author notes
                [Correspondence to ] Dr Rhea J Rocque; rhea.rocque@ 123456gmail.com
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4548-2229
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4716-6505
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4114-8971
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4192-0682
                Article
                bmjopen-2020-046333
                10.1136/bmjopen-2020-046333
                8191619
                34108165
                504a1f4b-d691-484d-9c93-d6832d23cd32
                © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

                This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

                History
                : 27 October 2020
                : 28 May 2021
                Funding
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000024, Canadian Institutes of Health Research;
                Award ID: FDN-148426
                Categories
                Public Health
                1506
                1724
                Original research
                Custom metadata
                unlocked

                Medicine
                public health,social medicine
                Medicine
                public health, social medicine

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