Protecting your health from climate change impacts

On this page

• Adapting to climate change to improve health outcomes
• What we are doing to reduce the health impacts of climate change
• Assessing the health impacts of climate change
• Ensuring that climate change adaptations benefit all people
• Co-benefits of reducing greenhouse gas

Adapting to climate change to improve health outcomes

Climate change “adaptation” refers to the changes we make to our decisions, behaviours and activities to decrease the health impacts from hazards caused by a changing climate. Adapting to climate change can greatly lower current and future impacts on:

• your health
• community health
• health systems

You can prepare for the hazardous events and conditions that climate change can bring. These events and conditions include:

• floods
• air pollution
• infectious diseases
• extreme heat events

Canadian health authorities are also adapting to climate change by engaging in activities like:

• public education
• early warning systems
• health professional training
• monitoring of health impacts on Canadians
• scientific assessments of health risks and vulnerabilities

These actions help:

• protect people most at risk of health impacts from climate change
• build the climate resilience of health systems, including hospitals and community health centres, so they are ready for future impacts

Making health systems more resilient to climate change impacts means ensuring they:

• remain operational when threatened by hazards
• are sustainable over the longer term

One of the best ways to protect human health and well-being from current and future impacts of climate change is for individuals and health authorities to increase adaptation action.

What we are doing to reduce the health effects of climate change

In 2016, we committed to:

• grow the economy
• meet emission reduction targets
• build resilience to a changing climate

We developed the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change with provinces and territories, and in consultation with Indigenous Peoples. The framework identifies new actions to build resilience to climate change across Canada.

We released Canada’s strengthened climate plan, a Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy, in 2020. It lays out measures to achieve both environmental goals that address climate change and long-term secure jobs.

As part of efforts to reduce health risks to Canadians from climate change:

• Health Canada is:
  • leading the HealthADAPT initiative
  • working with a number of partners to protect people from extreme heat events
• the Public Health Agency of Canada is working to reduce the risks to health from infectious diseases related to climate change

Assessing the health effects of climate change

To prepare for climate change, health authorities need to know about:

• climate change impacts on health
• the populations at highest risk
• the most effective measures to protect health

Governments and scientists conduct assessments of climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation to determine this information.

Assessments help to:

• strengthen the understanding of the links between weather/climate and health outcomes, including the health of populations most vulnerable to these risks
• provide health and emergency management officials, stakeholders and the public with information on the size and pattern of current and future health risks linked to climate change, and identify weaknesses in the health system
• highlight opportunities to use information about climate change in policies and programs that manage health risks, for example:
  • travel health advice
  • the design and location of new hospitals
• provide a baseline of information to check whether health is being impacted by climate change over time

We are preparing a new report, Health of Canadians in a Changing Climate: Advancing our Knowledge for Action. The report includes an assessment of the health impacts of a changing climate and of measures to reduce future risks. It will help health authorities across Canada plan for climate change.

Ensuring that climate change adaptations benefit all people

Climate change adaptation provides an opportunity to enhance health equity, that is, a more even distribution of positive health outcomes among people. However, not all people experience the benefits of climate change adaptations equally due to access, or lack of access, to other factors that support health. These factors include:

• education
• employment
• food security
• adequate housing
• financial resources
• access to health services

Health authorities want to make benefits of climate change adaptation accessible and distributed evenly to everyone. For example, certain groups may benefit more from specific adaptation measures like opening cooling centres or parks and gardens to allow people to escape the heat. Health authorities need to plan and deliver adaptation actions to ensure that they reduce health inequities, not make them worse.

Health authorities also need to consider the unique concerns of Indigenous Peoples when planning and delivering adaptation actions. Protecting Indigenous Peoples from climate change requires:

• engaging with Indigenous Peoples in a meaningful way
• recognizing and using Indigenous Knowledge in a respectful way
• a commitment to Indigenous leadership and partnership in research and adaptation efforts

Co-benefits of reducing greenhouse gas

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change impacts can:

• reduce, prevent or reverse the effects of climate change
• have very large and immediate co-benefits to health
  • co-benefits to health are improvements to health that aren’t the original intended outcome

These added or unplanned health co-benefits make the population healthier and better able to withstand future impacts. For example:

• greening communities to make them cooler in the summer can improve mental health
• building more bicycle paths to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through less driving can improve heart health

Decreasing the burning of fossil fuels:

• lowers our emissions of harmful greenhouse gases
  • this may reduce the severity of some of the health effects of climate change
• lessens the release of toxic pollutants that affect the health of people and ecosystems

Other health benefits of reducing greenhouse gas may include:

• reduced traffic injuries
• reduced noise pollution
• increased social contact
• improved mental health
• increased physical activity
• fewer deaths from air pollution
• reduced cardiovascular and respiratory diseases

Related links

• Chapter 7: Human Health" in Canada in a Changing Climate: Sector Perspectives on Impacts and Adaptation
• Human Health in a Changing Climate: a Canadian assessment of vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity