Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Feb 10;3(1):e000627.
doi: 10.1136/bmjmed-2023-000627. eCollection 2024.

Published research on the human health implications of climate change between 2012 and 2021: cross sectional study

Victoria L Bartlett  1 , Harry Doernberg  1 , Maryam Mooghali  2 , Ravi Gupta  3 , Joshua D Wallach  4 , Kate Nyhan  4   5 , Kai Chen  4 , Joseph S Ross  2   6   7
Affiliations

Published research on the human health implications of climate change between 2012 and 2021: cross sectional study

Victoria L Bartlett et al. BMJ Med. .

Abstract

Objective: To better understand the state of research on the effects of climate change on human health, including exposures, health conditions, populations, areas of the world studied, funding sources, and publication characteristics, with a focus on topics that are relevant for populations at risk.

Design: Cross sectional study.

Data sources: The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences climate change and human health literature portal, a curated bibliographical database of global peer reviewed research and grey literature was searched. The database combines searches of multiple search engines including PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, and includes added-value expert tagging of climate change exposures and health impacts.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion criteria were peer reviewed, original research articles that investigated the health effects of climate change and were published in English from 2012 to 2021. After identification, a 10% random sample was selected to manually perform a detailed characterisation of research topics and publication information.

Results: 10 325 original research articles were published between 2012 and 2021, and the number of articles increased by 23% annually. In a random sample of 1014 articles, several gaps were found in research topics that are particularly relevant to populations at risk, such as those in the global south (134 countries established through the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) (n=444; 43.8%), adults aged 65 years or older (n=195; 19.2%), and on topics related to human conflict and migration (n=25; 2.5%) and food and water quality and security (n=148; 14.6%). Additionally, fewer first authors were from the global south (n=349; 34.4%), which may partly explain why research focusing on these countries is disproportionally less.

Conclusions: Although the body of research on the health effects of climate change has grown substantially over the past decade, including those with a focus on the global south, a disproportionate focus continues to be on countries in the global north and less at risk populations. Governments are the largest source of funding for such research, and governments, particularly in the global north, need to re-orient their climate and health research funding to support researchers in the global south and to be more inclusive of issues that are relevant to the global south.

Keywords: Public health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: JDW is supported by the FDA, Arnold Ventures, Johnson and Johnson; JSR is supported by the FDA, Arnold Ventures, Johnson and Johnson, AHRQ, and NHLBI and was an expert witness at the request of Relator’s attorneys, the Greene Law Firm, in a qui tam suit alleging violations of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute against Biogen Inc. that was settled in September 2022; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Original research articles studying the association between climate change and health, 2012-21, in total (n=10 325) and in random 10% sample (n=1014)
Figure 2
Figure 2
(Top) Climate change exposures; (middle) health effects; and (bottom) geographies studied in original research articles studying the association between climate change and health, 2012-21
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N, et al. . The 2020 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises. The Lancet 2021;397:129–70. 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32290-X - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization . Quantitative risk assessment of the effects of climate change on selected causes of death, 2030s and 2050s. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2014.
    1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
    1. Romanello M, McGushin A, Di Napoli C, et al. . The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future. The Lancet 2021;398:1619–62. 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01787-6 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Orru H, Ebi KL, Forsberg B. The interplay of climate change and air pollution on health. Curr Environ Health Rep 2017;4:504–13. 10.1007/s40572-017-0168-6 - DOI - PMC - PubMed