Health impacts of climate change and ozone depletion: An ecoepidemiologic modeling approach

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate changes and stratospheric ozone depletion affect human health in various ways. Current mainstream epidemiologic research methods do not appear well adapted to analyze these health impacts, which involve complex systems influenced by human interventions or simpler processes that will take place in the future. This paper discusses a different paradigm for studying the health impacts of global environmental changes and focuses on the development of integrated ecoepidemiologic models using three examples - the effect of climate change on vector-borne diseases, the effect of climate change on thermal-related mortality, and the effects of increasing ultraviolet levels because of ozone depletion on the rates of skin cancer.