Page 84 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Unit 3: Information Products

American Public Health Association Notes
In 2007, the American Public Health Association issued a policy statement titled ‘’Addressing the
Urgent Threat of Global Climate Change to Public Health and the Environment’’:
The long-term threat of global climate change to global health is extremely serious and the fourth
IPCC report and other scientific literature demonstrate convincingly that anthropogenic GHG
emissions are primarily responsible for this threat….US policy makers should immediately take
necessary steps to reduce US emissions of GHGs, including carbon dioxide, to avert dangerous
climate change.
Australian Medical Association
In 2004, the Australian Medical Association issued the position statement Climate Change and
Human Health in which they recommend policies “to mitigate the possible consequential health
effects of climate change through improved energy efficiency, clean energy production and other
emission reduction steps.”
This statement was revised again in 2008
The world’s climate – our life-support system–is being altered in ways that are likely to pose
significant direct and indirect challenges to health. While ‘climate change’ can be due to natural
forces or human activity, there is now substantial evidence to indicate that human activity–and
specifically increased greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions–is a key factor in the pace and extent of
global temperature increases.
Health impacts of climate change include the direct impacts of extreme events such as storms, floods,
heatwaves and fires and the indirect effects of longer-term changes, such as drought, changes to the
food and water supply, resource conflicts and population shifts.
Increases in average temperatures mean that alterations in the geographic range and seasonality of
certain infections and diseases (including vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, Ross
River virus and food-borne infections such as Salmonellosis) may be among the first detectable
impacts of climate change on human health.
Human health is ultimately dependent on the health of the planet and its ecosystem. The AMA
believes that measures which mitigate climate change will also benefit public health. Reducing
GHGs should therefore be seen as a public health priority.
World Federation of Public Health Associations
In 2001, the World Federation of Public Health Associations issued a policy resolution on global
climate change:
Noting the conclusions of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
and other climatologists that anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which contribute to global climate
change, have substantially increased in atmospheric concentration beyond natural processes and
have increased by 28 percent since the industrial revolution….Realizing that subsequent health
effects from such perturbations in the climate system would likely include an increase in: heat-
related mortality and morbidity; vector-borne infectious diseases,… water-borne diseases…(and)
malnutrition from threatened agriculture….the World Federation of Public Health Associations…
recommends precautionary primary preventive measures to avert climate change, including
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and preservation of greenhouse gas sinks through appropriate
energy and land use policies, in view of the scale of potential health impacts.
World Health Organization
In 2008, the United Nations’ World Health Organization issued their report protecting health from
climate change:
There is now widespread agreement that the earth is warming, due to emissions of greenhouse
gases caused by human activity. It is also clear that current trends in energy use, development, and
population growth will lead to continuing – and more severe– climate change.

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