Climate Change Will Hit Kids Hardest

Children are more likely than adults to be harmed by the effects of global warming, and the medical community needs to do more to research, plan for and work to prevent those impacts, according to news from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

In its latest report, "Global Climate Change and Children's Health," the AAP advises pediatricians to be aware of the increased health threats, both direct and indirect, that climate change poses for children.

"Because of their physical, physiologic and cognitive immaturity, children are often most vulnerable to adverse health effects from environmental hazards," writes Katherine M. Shea, who authored the report with the AAP's Committee on Environmental Health. "As the climate changes, environmental hazards will change and often increase, and children are likely to suffer disproportionately from these changes."

Threats range from a greater likelihood of natural disasters; increased risk of diarrhea, water-borne and food-borne illnesses, which tend to occur more frequently when temperatures and rainfall rise; rising rates of vector-borne diseases (illnesses spread by insect or other organisms) like malaria, West Nile virus, Lyme disease and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome; and increased levels of pollution and allergens, which affect children disproportionately because their lungs are still developing and they breathe at higher rates than adults.

Natural disasters already affected some 66.5 million children a year between 1990 and 2000, while contaminated water causes diarrhea that annually kills about 1.62 million children under the age of five, according to the report.

An AAP policy statement issued at the same time as the report recommends that pediatricians take several steps to address the increased health threats to children posed by climate change. The statement advises doctors to stay up to date on the links between child health and climate change, work to educate elected officials on ways to minimize climate-related health threats, act as environmentally responsible role models by conserving energy in their offices and choosing efficient forms of transportation, support cooperative efforts at local and regional levels to deal with climate change, and make sure the health impacts of climate change on children are dealt with in pediatric training.

"This is a call for us to look at how climate change may be impacted by what we do as an organization, what we do in our personal business and what we do in our home life," said Helen J. Binns, who chairs the AAP's Committee on Environmental Health.

American Academy of Pediatrics, "Children Are at Increased Risk from Effects of Global Climate Change." URL: (http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/oct07climate.htm)