Nurses feel impact of climate change

Australian Nursing Journal

The impacts of increasing climate change and extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heatwaves and bushfires on health and nurses in particular, is not widely researched in Australia but the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has left no doubt that they should be. Soon after a report Climate Change and Primary Health Care co-authored by the Director of Australia's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health professor Tony McMichael listed the health risks from climate change in Australia as follows: * increased illness and deaths from more frequent and severe heatwaves, especially in urban environments; * increased injury, deaths and post-traumatic stress disorders from increases in extreme weather events such as floods, storms, cyclones and more extreme bushfires; * increased risk of gastroenteritis eg. from salmonella, camphylobacter; * changes in the range and seasonality of outbreaks of mosquito-borne infections eg. Dengue fever, Ross River virus, Barman Forest virus; * adverse health impacts of more severe droughts and longterm drying conditions on rural and remote communities through exposure to extremes of heat, dust and smoke; fresh water shortages with consequences for hygiene and sanitation, mental health (depressions and suicide), child emotional and developmental experiences; * regional increase in pollens and spores that cause or exacerbate asthma; and * increased inflow of environmental refugees.