Climate Change and Infections on the Move in North America

• Published in: Infection and drug resistance Vol. 14; pp. 5711 - 5723
• Main Authors: Hauser, Naomi, Conlon, Kathryn C, Desai, Angel, Kobziar, Leda N
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Zealand Dove Medical Press Limited 01-01-2021; Taylor & Francis Ltd; Dove; Dove Medical Press
• Subjects: Abiotic factors; Antimicrobial agents; antimicrobial resistance; Asthma; Cholera; Climate change; Communicable diseases; Disease transmission; Disturbance; Drought; Drug resistance in microorganisms; Ecosystem components; environment; Epidemiologists; Fatalities; Global warming; Health aspects; Heat; Infection; Infections; infectious disease; Infectious diseases; Mental disorders; Mental health; Pathogens; Review; Salinity; Sea level; Water temperature; Canada; Azerbaijan; California; North America; Texas; United States > US; environment; global warming; antimicrobial resistance; infectious disease; climate change
• ISSN: 1178-6973; 1178-6973
• DOI: 10.2147/IDR.S305077

Climate change is increasingly recognized for its impacts on human health, including how biotic and abiotic factors are driving shifts in infectious disease. Changes in ecological conditions and processes due to temperature and precipitation fluctuations and intensified disturbance regimes are affecting infectious pathogen transmission, habitat, hosts, and the characteristics of pathogens themselves. Understanding the relationships between climate change and infectious diseases can help clinicians broaden the scope of differential diagnoses when interviewing, diagnosing, and treating patients presenting with infections lacking obvious agents or transmission pathways. Here, we highlight key examples of how the mechanisms of climate change affect infectious diseases associated with water, fire, land, insects, and human transmission pathways in the hope of expanding the analytical framework for infectious disease diagnoses. Increased awareness of these relationships can help prepare both clinical physicians and epidemiologists for continued impacts of climate change on infectious disease in the future.