Over the course of the last years the American Publif Health Association (APHA) has hosted a series of webinars on the impact of climate change and health. More specially, they have hosted a webinar on climate changes impact towards children. In this webinar, Annie Willis discusses the impact it had in her as a teenager, while Dr. Laura Anderko and Dr. Stephanie Chalupka discussed the specifics impacts on health and some options for responses.
First, Annie Willis discussed the impact that hurricane sandy had on her, as a 15 year old. While physically there were no changes to her health, mentally, she was devastated by the event. Not only did she have to eventually relocate to NYC, she also lost all of her resources, and had very little when she moved. Additionally, she had no one to relate to or communicate with in her new school. This presented a unique problem because people did not know the struggles she had been through, and even if they did, they could not relate. This lead to increased stress and anxiety for her future. This was an interesting discussion, because the mental health component of dealing with a natural disaster is commonly overlooked, especially in our youth.
Next, Dr. Anderko discussed the specific health concerns for children and dealing with climate change. First, she discussed the key differences between children and adults. Children consume more water, eat more food, and breath more air per pound of body mass than adults. Additionally, children are not fully developed, and therefore can not react as well to environmental stresses. Children also spend more time outdoors and are more exposed to environmental changes. In addition to increased temperatures, and rising waters, climate change has also caused an increase in vector borne diseases (zika, Lyme disease, etc.). These diseases can be specifically more lethal to children because of their lower immunity, and less efficiently functioning bodies. Another key increase is heat related deaths in the last decade, specially seen in football. With rising temperatures, practices are forced to be moved into different times to limit exposure to heat.
The last presenter for the webinar was Dr. Chalupka. She discussed the different options for responses to climate change for our youth. Obviously the best response would be stronger policies to require a major change in energy expenditure to limit the impact humans will continue to have on the degradation of the environment. However, some other options include building resiliency against climate change and the impact its effects will have. Education on food, water, and vector borne diseases and the impact they can have in children. Lastly, providing more psychosocial programs for children that are displaced by natural disasters.
Obviosuly, the youth of the world is important, as they will be the one’s to suffer the harsh consequences of global warming. Additionally, their health could be affected even more than that of adults,. While recent policies have taken a step backwards in regards to improvements in public policy, there are still many things that could be done to improve the future health of the children facing global warming,
I support the idea that climate change, and natural disasters for that matter, pose major health issues as they continue to take a toll on a huge part of many lives. However, natural disasters are still not that abundant and simple courses of action are already present to combat this mental stress. There are relief programs and aid for these individuals. It all comes down to mental strength. They cannot control the outcome so they just have to do their best to live with the sad outcome of this natural disaster. Either way, being a kid does pose a threat to how strong one can be mentally as they are not fully developed in many aspects. I believe only time can fix this mentality and just working hard while staying positive.
As with rising temperatures and increasing water levels, we as a society need to look for different ways to cope with these issues and its consequences. But like with anything, we must tackle the source or base of the problem. Perhaps we can one day find a way to slow down or prevent global temperature increase and/or rising water levels. And if these cannot be solved soon, then the next level to tackle would be to find ways to prevent, or if not, lessen the negative impacts of temperature increases and water rises.
Finally, I agree on the impact policy change would have on climate change. This could make it so people emit less unnecessary, excessive, and harmful byproducts and pollution. Also, education once again is always a good thing to keep in your arsenal because none of these courses of action could be done without it.