From a standpoint of climate change impacts on health care, everyone lives downstream. Climate change poses a threat not only to the environment but also health care. Examples of impacts of climate change on health include high rates of morbidity and mortality as a result of increased heat, malnutrition, trauma, increased frequencies of infectious disease outbreaks, and mental illnesses among others. Children and adults alike are experience disproportionate effects of climate. Air pollution is one climate change issue that has greatly resulted in chronic and acute respiratory health complications. Not everyone is equally at risk of respiratory diseases associated with climate change. Considerations include age, location, and economic resources. Climate change aggravates air pollution resulting in chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma.
Air pollution most affects populations that live in close proximity to the industries that emit toxic gases such as carbon dioxide and oxides of Sulphur and nitrogen. Also those living near freeways are significantly affected by air pollution. The effects of climate change on respiratory complications occur at a national level. This is because in most states across the United State are industrialized. However, the effects are felt at state level particularly in local areas where the poor and people of color live adjacent to industries. Foe et al, (2019) in their study reveal that during thunderstorms there are severe epidemics of asthma. Although much evidence is yet to be gathered about asthma epidemics during thunderstorm, there is a causal link that pollen allergy as a result of climate change is due to allergen loadings in the air. During thunderstorms, dry updrafts entrain pollen grains into high humidity where they rupture and are cold drafted downwards where they are distributed (Fox et al, 2019). Thunderstorms release positive ions which could attach to the particles and enhance bronchial hyper responsiveness.
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Problem Statement
Admittedly, the United States has made progress pertaining air pollution that threaten public health. However, poor quality of air and localized exposure to air pollutants is still a significant problem affecting millions of people in urban centers ( American Public Health Association, 2017). Particularly, children and the elderly stand a greater risk. On the other hand low income and minority ethnic groups suffer from air pollution. There is a need for the government to do more on the Clean Air Act policy to enable everyone enjoy clean air. Furthermore, the ability to breathe clean air is an imperative human freedom.
Addressing the Issue
Suggested strategies for addressing air pollution under the Clean Air Act mainly revolves around increasing funding of the EPA, promoting clean power, advocating for environmental justice and developing technologies for analyzing, developing, and monitoring climate change related data. The federal government should increase funding for EPA to enable initiatives for implementing and enforcing the Clean Air Act. This will enable the agency to focus on local scale air toxics. Although national air toxics scales are known, so little is known at the local level. Yet it is significantly important to the people living in close proximity to industrial air pollutions.
Another strategy for addressing policy change of the Clean Air Act is air-toxics monitoring. Low income families and people of color live close to industries yet little or no monitoring goes on (Johnstone et al, 2020). The Clean Air Act should ensure that the EPA allocates resources to understand toxic air pollutants to which the community is exposed. This strategy will ensure that places with greater health risk are equally addressed as other parts of the country.
There should also be the development of advanced monitoring technologies and data analysis to assess the exposure of air pollution and public health risk. With the availability of low-cost monitors that can assess air quality, citizens should be encouraged to be hands-on these miniature monitors in order to collect data critical for climate change analysis. In addition to individual use of these monitors, the public will also be educated. Creation of awareness is important because it will help the public understand the meaning of the data as well as ways they can reduce exposure to air pollutants (American Public Health Association, 2017). For instance, they could avoid the use of routes that have heavy traffic. Consequently this will reduce the amount of air toxins they are exposed to.
Impact on Health Care Delivery System
While the impacts of air pollution have been felt on the environment, the health care delivery system is no exception. The United States health care system is highly interconnected with the numerous industrial activities that emit air pollutants. Besides being affected financially, the healthcare delivery system is also affected in terms of structure. From a financial standpoint, there are increased cases of air-pollution related morbidity. In the United States, for instance, approximately 1.2 million children living close to industrial areas have been reported to have asthma (Eckelman & Sherman, 2016). This has significantly increased the costs of the health care system in the country to treat such cases.
In terms of structure, the health care delivery system is also becoming incapable of handling the high numbers of diseases. If the issues of air pollution could be addressed accordingly, there could be a lesser number of people and therefore reduced patients visiting hospitals for health care issues (Zhong et al, 2020). Air pollution exposure is a vicious cycle because during health care delivery a lot of material is used which also ends up as waste. This waste is disposed to environments resulting in an endless cycle of air pollution. Therefore, the government and other stakeholders in the health sector should work in collaboration to reduce air pollution impact on health care.
References
American Public Health Association. (2017). Public health opportunities to address the health effects of climate change.
Eckelman, M. J., & Sherman, J. (2016). Environmental impacts of the US health care system and effects on public health. PloS one , 11 (6), e0157014.
Fox, M., Zuidema, C., Bauman, B., Burke, T., & Sheehan, M. (2019). Integrating Public Health into Climate Change Policy and Planning: State of Practice Update. International journal of environmental research and public health , 16 (18), 3232.
Johnston, J. E., Juarez, Z., Navarro, S., Hernandez, A., & Gutschow, W. (2020). Youth Engaged Participatory Air Monitoring: A ‘Day in the Life ‘in Urban Environmental Justice Communities. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 17 (1), 93.
Zhong, X., Lee, S., Zhao, C., Lee, H. K., Bain, P. A., Kundinger, T., ... & Li, J. (2019). Reducing COPD readmissions through predictive modeling and incentive-based interventions. Health care management science , 22 (1), 121-139.
