Editorial: Climate change is a children’s health hazard

Abstract

As temperatures defy heat records, it is difficult to ignore the implications of climate change for public health, including impacts on population health more specifically. In short, climate change is happening now and presents an immediate hazard to human health on a global scale. Age-related health effects are an inalienable truth; physiology is relatively universal, and so are the ways in which our bodies respond to different types and levels of exposures to environmental stressors at different lifestages. Children are uniquely vulnerable to climate change stressors not only due to their physical and developmental immaturity, but also because they generally rely on adult caretakers for the fundamentals of survival. This article is the summary piece accompanying a special issue of Environmental Research: Health. It compiles new studies on children’s vulnerability to climate change as well as studies exploring climate adaptation strategies to promote and protect child health. In this special issue, we see how these concepts are reflected repeatedly in empirical data domestically and internationally. For example, the special issue includes articles investigating linkages between climate change and health hazards such as asthma, injuries, and malnutrition. While local context is extremely important, many of the health effects may be extrapolated to other communities around the world.