Climate Change and Infectious Disease Patterns in the United States: Public Health Preparation and Ecological Restoration as a Matter of Justice

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CORNELL_MAESTHESIS Edited.docx (2.35 MB)

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http://hdl.handle.net/11603/3006

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Goucher College MA in Environmental Studies

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Date

2016-06

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capstones
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MA in Environmental Studies

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Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Subjects

Environmental Justice
Environmental Policy
Environmental Health
Climate Change
Public Health
Infectious Disease
Ecological Restoration
Epidemics -- Prevention and control -- United States.
Epidemics -- Forecasting -- United States.
Climate changes -- United States -- Planning.
Environmental studies -- Capstone (Graduate)

Abstract

There exists an ancient and delicate balance between the Earth’s climate systems and human health. As the Earth’s climate systems experience disruption, so will the systems of human health. With disruptions of weather patterns come increased hazard events, causing more floods, droughts, and presence of vectors. These changes ultimately cause an increase in infectious disease and new disease patterns affecting the global population. In the United States, there are several geographic areas that are at an increased risk of hazard events. More importantly, there are also populations that are distinctly more at-risk of contracting infectious disease due to underlying vulnerabilities, as indicated by social determinants of health. This document discusses infectious disease outbreaks that we can predict are coming to the United States, where we can expect to see these predictions manifest, based on our current knowledge, and what the United States, on a local level, needs to do in order to best prepare for these imminent threats. Due to the fact that portions of the population are being unjustly burdened by climate vulnerabilities and infectious disease, the timely responses to these communities is truly a matter of environmental justice. In order to best prepare for the inevitable, this paper discusses necessary partnerships that need to be made between the public health and environmental/ecology fields to form a holistic, just approach to communities on a local level.