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Climate and Health

Field studying how climate change affects human health, including heat-related illness, infectious disease spread, nutrition, and chronic conditions.

Current stories

scienceOne report1 publisher

Los Angeles County's West Nile count passes 180, the highest in nearly a decade

Los Angeles County has logged more than 180 West Nile cases this year, its most in nearly a decade, county health figures show. A local vector-control official links the rise to a warm year, a plausible cause that one season of figures can show only as a correlation.

Publishers:theguardian.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Lancet Commission ranks malicious AI beside nuclear war as a threat that could end humanity

Lancet Commission experts rank malicious AI use, including bioweapons, alongside nuclear war as the threats that could end humanity by 2100. Their report says each of its 17 risks has a realistic route to action, so AI misuse reaches policymakers as a problem with a solution.

Publishers:theguardian.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives35
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Tampa outbreak pushes Florida's locally caught dengue past its imported cases

Florida has 252 locally caught dengue cases this year, more than five times any of the prior four years at this date, a University of Florida researcher said. Hillsborough County, around Tampa, accounts for 223 of them, so most of the jump is one county's outbreak, far north of the Miami-area clusters Florida sees every year.

Publishers:livescience.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

Three of five Lancet steps for a super El Niño aim at measuring its health toll

University of Bristol researchers set out five steps in The Lancet to protect health from a super El Niño expected late this year. Most of the steps ask for evidence first, because the extra health burden El Niño adds to climate change is still largely unmeasured.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Tanzanian mouse and rainfall records predict the timing of Nigeria's Lassa fever peaks

Natural History Museum and Oxford researchers matched the timing of more than 6,000 Nigerian Lassa cases using rainfall and nearly 30 years of rodent data. Because the model runs on weather and rodent ecology, health authorities could use it to anticipate when the risk of spillover to people climbs each season.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives55
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

University of Sao Paulo dashboard maps child stunting and overweight against municipal emissions in Brazil

Sustentarea at the University of Sao Paulo mapped under-5 stunting and overweight against per capita emissions for Brazilian municipalities from 2008 to 2019. It shows where the problems overlap, though local emissions cannot test the climate-to-diet chain said to link them.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Heidelberg researchers want health impact assessment built into climate policy before measures are adopted

Writing in Nature Human Behaviour, a Heidelberg group argues that health inequity is produced outside health systems, and asks climate planners to state in advance which groups each measure helps and which it leaves worse off.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence46
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+16
Incentives60
Confidence52
scienceOne report1 publisher

Americans' link between climate change and illness holds steady at 65%

The Annenberg Public Policy Center surveyed 1,904 adults in early August and found the health-attribution figure level with 2024 and 2025, while knowledge of where to find a cooling center sat where it did a year ago.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption42
Hype gap+15
Incentives40
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

Heat joins antibiotic overuse among the forces driving antimicrobial resistance

The World Health Organization counts one in six infections as drug resistant, and a growing body of research argues that heat and chemical stress help resistance genes persist and travel. The size of that contribution is still unmeasured.

Publishers:eos.org

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives40
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

A couple dozen white roofs in Makassar, and a 5-degree ceiling on what paint can do

Stanford researchers are coating informal-settlement roofs in Indonesia to cut indoor heat by up to 5F. The defence offered is physiological rather than comfort, and the cost is still unpriced.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence30
Adoption12
Hype gap+25
Incentives62
Confidence42