The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso Dr. Jeremy Hess Discusses Lancet's "Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change" (December 13th)
In late November, Lancet published its 2018 "Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change." The 36-page report (link below), authored by nearly 70 scientists, including Dr. Jeremy Hess, provides an assessment of health and economic effects of climate change and global warming as well as provides an assessment of the world's green house gas emissions and current global efforts to reduce our carbon footprint all via 41 data indicators reported under five domains. Among other sobering conclusions, the report states, "Carbon intensity remains broadly unchanged," i.e., "climate change is moving faster than we are." This leads to the report states, "unacceptable high level of risk for the current and future health of populations of the world," that have the report states further, "dire implications for every aspect of human life."
During this 32-minute conversation Dr. Hess discusses his contribution to the report, moreover his contribution to the "adaptation, planning and resilience for health" domain and he comments on numerous other aspects of the report including resulting vector borne diseases, moreover Dengue, the effect greenhouse gas emissions have on air quality and health, effects on agricultural production and the media's coverage of climate change.
Dr. Hess is Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is as well a member of the Center for Health and the Global Environment (CHanGE) at UW and is a consultant for the Climate and Health Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also the principal investigator of an NIH-funded grant supporting work in India on the epidemiology of extreme heat and strategies for developing, implementing and evaluating heat early warning systems and is currently section editor at the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. Among other awards Dr. Hess is a recipient of the Presidential GreenGov award. Dr. Hess earned his MD and MPH in global environmental health at Emory University.
The "Countdown" report is at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32594-7/fulltext#
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