Adapting to climate change—what should the health sector be doing?

Abstract

The heat wave that occurred in August 2003in Europe was unprecedented. The hugeimpact on the health of Europeans causedhealth policy makers to seriously considerthis environmental hazard, in many countriesfor the first time. As well as drivingsome changes in public health practice, theevent triggered a wealth of research on howheat waves and hot weather affect our health.As an increase in heat waves is one of themost certain impacts of climate change inEurope, the heatware research and practicehas also been engaged in the wider climatechange debate. Policy is often driven bydisasters and it is interesting to speculatewhat climate change actions would havebeen undertaken had the heat wave notoccurred. The articles in this journal onclimate change (1, 2) are timely, as we aresix years on from the European heat waveand climate change is now accepted as arisk to human health.