Modeling vulnerable urban populations in the global context of a changing climate

Abstract

Climate change, an increase in overall average temperature and frequency of extreme weather events, will influence human populations and exert stress on the current and future built environment. Most contemporary climate models indicate that climate change will have heterogeneous impact globally, and its effects are expected to be more severe in urban centers. This is due to the increased density of human populations, materials used to construct the urban area, and land-use practices therein (O’Neill et al., 2010). There are numerous health stressors present in urban locations, such as the urban heat island (UHI) effect and pollution, despite proximal access to health services. Understanding the effects of climate change on human health will become a central focus of the public health community in the twenty-first century. The anticipated consequences of climate change are not yet fully realized, but increased local risk disparities are apparent and will require a multidisciplinary paradigm of investigation to successfully identify vulnerable populations and mitigate both environmental and social impacts. This chapter highlights several environmental and disease processes which are expected to be impacted by a changing climate. Following this introduction, a methodology of determining vulnerability using state-of-the-art data acquisition and computational techniques is illustrated. Therefore, this chapter aims to be an introduction to climate effects on human health and to the vulnerability modeling of these effects.