Public health and nuclear winter: addressing a catastrophic threat

• Published in: Journal of public health policy Vol. 44; no. 3; pp. 360 - 369
• Main Authors: Vilhelmsson, Andreas, Baum, Seth D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01-09-2023; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Climate change; Cold War; Environment; Environmental changes; Equality and Human Rights; Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi; Food security; Global catastrophic risk; Health care policy; Health policy; Health research; Health Sciences; Healthy food; Human influences; Hälsovetenskap; Interdisciplinary aspects; Interdisciplinary research; Interdisciplinary studies; Medical and Health Sciences; Medical Sociology; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Military policy; Military preparedness; Military readiness; Nuclear war; Nuclear weapons; Nuclear winter; Public Health; Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology; Resilience; Social Justice; Social Policy; Social Sciences; Sociology; Viewpoint; War; Winter; Climate change; Environment; Global catastrophic risk; Nuclear winter; Public health
• ISSN: 0197-5897; 1745-655X
• DOI: 10.1057/s41271-023-00416-7

Despite the end of the Cold War, the world still has thousands of nuclear weapons and adversarial relations between the countries that possess them. A nuclear war could cause large and abrupt global environmental change known as nuclear winter, with potentially devastating public health consequences. A significant line of natural science research characterizes nuclear winter and its potential effect on global food security, but less has been done on the human impacts and policy implications. Therefore, this Viewpoint proposes an interdisciplinary research and policy agenda to understand and address the public health implications of nuclear winter. Public health research can apply existing tools developed for the study of other environmental and military issues. Public health policy institutions can help build preparedness and community resilience to nuclear winter. Given the extreme potential severity of nuclear winter, it should be treated as a major global public health challenge to be addressed by public health institutions and researchers.