Not only can pediatricians advocate for policy changes to mitigate health effects from climate change, but they can also make clinical changes to help families prepare for these effects.
ORLANDO — It's important for pediatricians not only to understand the causes and effects of climate change but also to know how to discuss this issue with families and make risk-based adjustments to their clinical practice based on the individual health and circumstances of each patient. That's one of the key messages delivered on September 28 at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics by Elizabeth C.
Charles Moon, MD, a pediatrician and Pediatric Environmental Health Fellow at the Children's Environmental Health Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, found the talk particularly helpful in providing information about both the broader issue and what it means on a local practice level.
"As the winters get warmer, mice that might not be able to survive during the winter are surviving, and mice reproduce at a very rapid rate," she said."The increase in moisture means that dust mites, which absorb their water — they drink by absorbing humidity that's in the air — will be present in higher concentrations, and their range will expand."
"This is coupled with the fact that the projected increases in air pollution increase susceptibility to respiratory virus infections," Matsui said."In fact, climate change and air pollution are inextricably linked." Climate disruption creates extreme weather patterns that then lead to worsening air quality due to high temperatures; heavier precipitation; and more forest fires, droughts, dust storms, thunderstorms, hurricanes, stagnation events, and other extreme weather.
Air pollution from wildfire smoke is also more toxic to the lungs than air pollution from other sources, so if there's wildfire-based air pollution, the impact on respiratory hospitalizations is significantly greater. Even in places that would not otherwise be at risk for wildfires, the threat remains of air pollution from more distant fires, as New York City experienced from Canadian wildfires last year.
"It's important to consider context," including age, gender and social and behavioral context, she said."We as pediatricians know that children are particularly vulnerable, and what happens to them has an effect across the lifespan." "Resilience is a more holistic concept," Matsui said,"which advocates for system-wide, multilevel changes and involves a range of strategies to enhance social, human, natural, physical, and financial capacities."Pediatricians have an important role to play when it comes to climate change and health impacts.
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