Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
Abstract
Climate change is likely to have serious and significant impacts on human population health. The
mechanisms by which climate change may affect health are becoming better understood. Current
quantitative methods of estimating future health impacts rely on disease-specific models that
primarily describe relationships between mean values of weather variables and health outcomes
and do not address the impacts of extreme events or weather disasters. Extreme events have the
potential to disrupt community function, which is of concern for decision-makers. Estimating the
magnitude and extent of impacts from low probability high impact events is challenging because
there is often no analogue that can provide relevant evidence and that take into account the
complexity of factors determining future vulnerability and health impacts (the social determinants of
health)
