Are you aware that the Earth’s surface’ average temperature is about 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than at any time in the last 100,000 years? Do you know that the last decade was the warmest on record? What you are thinking is right. It is because of climate change. But, as people assume, climate change is not just about warmer temperatures. It also means intense drought, severe fires, floods, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms, declining biodiversity, and water scarcity, among other things. Not just that, it can also be the reason for numerous infectious diseases, food-related diseases, water-related diseases, and even mental health issues.
According to the United Nations, changes in one area can influence change in all other things. For everything is interlinked on the planet earth. Time and again scientists have been warning that humans are responsible for climate change in the last two centuries. Without a doubt, climate change is a global health problem. Before we delve deep into the topic, let’s understand what climate change and primary health care actually mean.
Understanding climate change
Climate change is nothing but the long-term shift in weather patterns and global temperature. Though the change in climate can be natural due to large volcanic eruptions or changes in activities in the sun. But, according to scientists, climate changes have been predominantly due to man-made activities like the burning of fossil fuels since the 1800s. When fossil fuels are burned, they emit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases. The gases in turn trap the sun’s heat and increase temperature by acting as a blanket wrapping around the Earth.
According to the UN, clearing land and deforestation produces carbon dioxide, while agriculture, gas operations, and oil releases methane emissions. Some of the sectors producing greenhouse gases are agriculture, buildings, industries, transport, energy, and land use.
Understanding Primary Health Care (PHC)
Primary Health Care (PHC) is a whole-of-society approach that aims at improving health and overall well-being of people. This model enables healthcare systems to support a person’s health needs right from creating health awareness, disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, palliative care, and more. It is a type of integrated health service that meets people’s health needs throughout their lives. PHCs are established to strengthen national health systems and bring health services closer to communities. The World Health Organization (WHO) believes it to be the best tool for achieving its goal of health for all. According to them, PHCs have three components:
- Integrated health services aimed at meeting people’s health needs throughout their lives.
- Empowering individuals, families, and societies to become in charge of their own health.
- Addressing the broader determinants of health through multisectoral policy and action.
PHC is one of the most inclusive, equitable, and cost-effective ways to achieve universal health coverage. It plays a vital role in strengthening the resilience of health systems.
Primary health care is essential in a country like India, where access to health is a fundamental right. Article 47 of the Indian Constitution reads, “The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties, and, in particular, the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption, except for medicinal purposes, of intoxicating drinks and of drugs that are injurious to health.”
Connection between climate change and primary health care
Though it is hard to believe, statistics show that over five million people die every year due to abnormal hot and cold temperatures across the globe. The data establishes a very close link between climate change and health. Unlike other factors, it affects physical health, mental health, and the healthcare system.
- Physical health: Rising temperatures due to climate change often result in wildfires. It in turn increases air pollution, which in turn is closely associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. According to the Commonwealth Fund, more than 1.8 million people had died in 2019 due to fine particulate matter present in the atmosphere. Also, extreme hot weather events like heat waves and fires can lead to exhaustion and heat stroke in addition to worsening chronic health conditions. About 5,600 heat-related deaths have occurred between 1997 and 2006 in 297 countries due to temperature rise. Floods and storms have resulted in drownings, injuries, waterborne diseases, infrastructural destruction, and displacement of people. It can also cause infectious diseases, including mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue and gastroenteritis outbreaks.
- Mental health: Climate change has forced people to displace and seek refuge. According to reports, more than 20 million people have been displaced since 2008 due to weather-related events. Experts claim that flooding and prolonged droughts are closely associated with anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. At the same time, extreme heat can cause mood and anxiety disorders and lead to suicide, aggression, and interpersonal violence. Grief, emotional pain, and disorientation are caused by alterations to the natural environment. They can also lead to poor work performance, harm interpersonal relationships, and lower self-esteem. Climate change also leads to job loss and harms social cohesion and community resources. Psychiatrists have developed a new vocabulary to name the impacts of climate change on people. According to the American Psychiatric Association, ecological grief and eco-anxiety are used to describe the sense of loss or the anxiety people feel related to climate change; solastalgia to refer to the nostalgia one feels for a childhood landscape destroyed by environmental changes; and eco-anxiety to the climate emergency.
- Healthcare system: Climate change has a negative impact on the healthcare system. For it hampers both the access and quality of healthcare services. Climate change and air pollution associated with it increase healthcare costs. It also broadens the existing inequalities in health and the healthcare system. Some of the most affected people are people from marginalized communities and economically backward communities, people with pre-existing health conditions, senior citizens, and children. Also, when a hospital is closed due to climate change-related events, others become overcrowded. This in turn will deteriorate the quality of the service provided. Not just that, it will also lead to the unavailability of critical medicines or medical devices. In addition, healthcare professionals also experience physical and mental exhaustion.
Smile Foundation’s contribution
To ensure people from marginalised communities have access to quality healthcare services, Smile Foundation has been taking primary healthcare services to the doorsteps of underserved communities in rural and urban India. Our comprehensive and community-centric health programmes provide both curative and preventive services by addressing gaps in availability, accessibility, and affordability of healthcare services. The organisation has fully equipped mobile healthcare units, e-health kiosks, telemedicine centres and static healthcare centres in remote rural areas, in addition to organising numerous health camps.
We have helped over 1,050,000 people through our healthcare projects, provided relief support under emergency and disaster response to more than 77,000 people, and sensitised over 75,000 people on health and hygiene through IEC activities.
At a time when the globe has been witnessing a rise both in global warming and burden on the healthcare system due to climate change-related events, global leaders should come together to work on reducing the effects of climate change events. Since the emission of greenhouse gases is the result of our day-to-day activities, eco-friendly and sustainable alternatives should be adopted vigorously by every other individual. Only then could climate change be controlled, at least to an extent.
