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Impact of extreme weather events and climate change for health and social care systems

Curtis, Sarah; Fair, Alistair; Wistow, Jonathan; Val, Dimitri V.; Oven, Katie

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Authors

Sarah Curtis

Alistair Fair

Dimitri V. Val

Katie Oven



Abstract

This review, commissioned by the Research Councils UK Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) programme, concerns research on the impacts on health and social care systems in the United Kingdom of extreme weather events, under conditions of climate change. Extreme weather events considered include heatwaves, coldwaves and flooding. Using a structured review method, we consider evidence regarding the currently observed and anticipated future impacts of extreme weather on health and social care systems and the potential of preparedness and adaptation measures that may enhance resilience. We highlight a number of general conclusions which are likely to be of international relevance, although the review focussed on the situation in the UK. Extreme weather events impact the operation of health services through the effects on built, social and institutional infrastructures which support health and health care, and also because of changes in service demand as extreme weather impacts on human health. Strategic planning for extreme weather and impacts on the care system should be sensitive to within country variations. Adaptation will require changes to built infrastructure systems (including transport and utilities as well as individual care facilities) and also to institutional and social infrastructure supporting the health care system. Care sector organisations, communities and individuals need to adapt their practices to improve resilience of health and health care to extreme weather. Preparedness and emergency response strategies call for action extending beyond the emergency response services, to include health and social care providers more generally.

Citation

Curtis, S., Fair, A., Wistow, J., Val, D. V., & Oven, K. (2017). Impact of extreme weather events and climate change for health and social care systems. Environmental Health, 16(S1), Article 128. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-017-0324-3

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 31, 2017
Online Publication Date Dec 5, 2017
Publication Date Dec 5, 2017
Deposit Date Dec 7, 2017
Publicly Available Date Dec 7, 2017
Journal Environmental Health
Electronic ISSN 1476-069X
Publisher BioMed Central
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 16
Issue S1
Article Number 128
DOI https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-017-0324-3
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1338723

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.





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