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Di Napoli C, McGushin A, Romanello M, Ayeb-Karlsson S, Cai W, Chambers J, Dasgupta S, Escobar LE, Kelman I, Kjellstrom T, Kniveton D, Liu Y, Liu Z, Lowe R, Martinez-Urtaza J, McMichael C, Moradi-Lakeh M, Murray KA, Rabbaniha M, Semenza JC, Shi L, Tabatabaei M, Trinanes JA, Vu BN, Brimicombe C, Robinson EJ. Tracking the impacts of climate change on human health via indicators: lessons from the Lancet Countdown. BMC Public Health 2022; 22:663. [PMID: 35387618 PMCID: PMC8985369 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-022-13055-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2021] [Accepted: 03/22/2022] [Indexed: 03/13/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND In the past decades, climate change has been impacting human lives and health via extreme weather and climate events and alterations in labour capacity, food security, and the prevalence and geographical distribution of infectious diseases across the globe. Climate change and health indicators (CCHIs) are workable tools designed to capture the complex set of interdependent interactions through which climate change is affecting human health. Since 2015, a novel sub-set of CCHIs, focusing on climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability indicators (CCIEVIs) has been developed, refined, and integrated by Working Group 1 of the "Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change", an international collaboration across disciplines that include climate, geography, epidemiology, occupation health, and economics. DISCUSSION This research in practice article is a reflective narrative documenting how we have developed CCIEVIs as a discrete set of quantifiable indicators that are updated annually to provide the most recent picture of climate change's impacts on human health. In our experience, the main challenge was to define globally relevant indicators that also have local relevance and as such can support decision making across multiple spatial scales. We found a hazard, exposure, and vulnerability framework to be effective in this regard. We here describe how we used such a framework to define CCIEVIs based on both data availability and the indicators' relevance to climate change and human health. We also report on how CCIEVIs have been improved and added to, detailing the underlying data and methods, and in doing so provide the defining quality criteria for Lancet Countdown CCIEVIs. CONCLUSIONS Our experience shows that CCIEVIs can effectively contribute to a world-wide monitoring system that aims to track, communicate, and harness evidence on climate-induced health impacts towards effective intervention strategies. An ongoing challenge is how to improve CCIEVIs so that the description of the linkages between climate change and human health can become more and more comprehensive.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia Di Napoli
- School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading, UK. .,Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
| | - Alice McGushin
- Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK
| | - Marina Romanello
- Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK
| | - Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson
- Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London, London, UK.,School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton Falmer, UK.,United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security, Bonn, Germany
| | - Wenjia Cai
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
| | - Jonathan Chambers
- Institute for Environmental Science, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Shouro Dasgupta
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK.,Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Venice, Italy.,Università Ca' Foscari, Venice, Italy
| | - Luis E Escobar
- Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
| | - Ilan Kelman
- Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK.,Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London, London, UK.,University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
| | - Tord Kjellstrom
- Health and Environment International Trust, Nelson, New Zealand
| | - Dominic Kniveton
- School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton Falmer, UK
| | - Yang Liu
- Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA
| | - Zhao Liu
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
| | - Rachel Lowe
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain.,Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain.,Centre on Climate Change & Planetary Health and Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Jaime Martinez-Urtaza
- Department of Genetics and Microbiology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Celia McMichael
- School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Maziar Moradi-Lakeh
- Preventive Medicine and Public Health Research Center, Psychosocial Health Research Institute, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Kris A Murray
- MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Imperial College London, London, UK.,MRC Unit The Gambia At London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Atlantic Boulevard, Fajara, The Gambia
| | - Mahnaz Rabbaniha
- Iranian Fisheries Science Research Institute, Agricultural Research, Education, and Extension Organisation, Tehran, Iran
| | - Jan C Semenza
- Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Liuhua Shi
- Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA
| | - Meisam Tabatabaei
- Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE), Institute of Tropical Aquaculture and Fisheries (AKUATROP), Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia.,Henan Province Forest Resources Sustainable Development and High-value Utilization Engineering Research Center, School of Forestry, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, 450002, China
| | - Joaquin A Trinanes
- Department of Electronics and Computer Science, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago, Spain
| | - Bryan N Vu
- Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA
| | - Chloe Brimicombe
- Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Elizabeth J Robinson
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK
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Tong S, Ebi K, Olsen J. Infectious disease, the climate, and the future. Environ Epidemiol 2021; 5:e133. [PMID: 33870009 PMCID: PMC8043725 DOI: 10.1097/ee9.0000000000000133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2020] [Accepted: 01/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Emergence and resurgence of infectious diseases are serious threats to population health. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused an enormous human toll and health crisis. Responses to the pandemic are significantly affecting the global economy. What is most concerning about COVID-19 is not the virus itself, but rather that it may compound with other and more serious crises. Climate change will likely affect human health, economy, and the society more than disease outbreaks. Governments at all levels, from local to international, can chart a greener, healthier, and equitable course for the future, investing in strategies and technologies that minimize and prevent risks, including those posed by climate change and the pandemic, promoting obligations to drastically reduce emissions, enhancing societal equality, improving community resilience, and achieving sustainable development goals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shilu Tong
- Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
- School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
- Center for Global Health, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
- School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Kristie Ebi
- School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
| | - Jorn Olsen
- Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
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Ciociola T, Giovati L, Conti S, Magliani W. Anti-Infective Antibody-Derived Peptides Active against Endogenous and Exogenous Fungi. Microorganisms 2021; 9:microorganisms9010143. [PMID: 33435157 PMCID: PMC7827253 DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms9010143] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2020] [Revised: 01/05/2021] [Accepted: 01/06/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Mycoses still represent relevant opportunistic infections worldwide, although overshadowed in recent years by other severe and more widespread infections. Moreover, deep-seated mycoses are often accompanied by unacceptably high mortality rates. Etiologic agents include endogenous components of the mycobiota, Candida and Malassezia species above all, and exogenous species, both yeasts and filamentous fungi. Old and new fungal pathogens are increasingly characterized by resistance to the existing antifungal agents, making imperative the search for effective and safe new therapeutics. Among the candidate molecules proposed in recent decades, synthetic peptides derived from the complementarity determining and constant regions of diverse antibodies (Abs), as well as the translated products of Ab-encoding genes, have proved of considerable interest. Their anti-infective activities, regardless of the specificity and isotype of the originating Ab, will be briefly presented and discussed in the light of their different mechanisms of action. Intriguing suggestions on the possible function of Abs after their half-life will be presented, following the recent detection, in human serum, of an antimicrobial Ab-derived peptide. Overall, Abs could represent a source of biologically active, highly flexible peptides, devoid of detectable toxicity, which can be easily synthesized and manipulated to be used, alone or in association with already available drugs, for new anti-infective strategies.
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