45% of deaths are linked to climate change

Madrid (EFE).- The Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI) and the Portuguese Society of Internal Medicine (SPMI) have published a consensus document in which they warn that climate, meteorological and water change is responsible for “45% of total deaths reported since 1970.”

The document, in which 32 internal medicine societies, colleges and associations from 29 Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries participated, confirms that climate, meteorology and water change account for 50% of all disasters and have a “strong and lasting impact on people, with direct and indirect damage to their mental health and psychosocial well-being.”

The document warns of zoonotic diseases on the rise, which are responsible for nearly 100 percent of epidemics, water-related diseases that cause 3.4 million deaths annually, and foodborne diseases, which cause 420,000 deaths annually worldwide.

But there are also, according to internists, 13 million deaths annually due to environmental factors, more than five million deaths due to extreme temperatures, and 10 million people who lost their lives to severe drought in the last century. .

These climate consequences particularly affect the most vulnerable population groups, says the document, which calls for the “inevitable responsibility” of health workers in this emerging problem.

Nine out of ten breathe polluted air

The consensus text, which seeks to clarify the situation and identify strategies to combat a problem they describe as urgent, warns that nine out of ten people breathe air with polluted levels that exceed the limits set by the World Health Organization. . ).

Internal medicine doctors say that air pollution and the increase in allergens lead to the growth of cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and allergies.

As these scientific medical societies explain in the text, health systems must work to increase climate resilience and environmental sustainability, and call for the participation of all health professionals in this global fight.

Moreover, they position internal medicine as a central specialty to respond to these challenges.

Beyond human resources to confront the risks of climate disasters, internists believe that health systems must have contingency plans at all levels of care.

They say hospitals must be flexible, with enough hospital and intensive care beds and integrated levels of care, information systems must be robust, telemedicine must be scaled up and able to reduce patient travel, and decisions “must be accompanied by science.”

The concept of “One Health” at the university

To prepare the document, a working group was established in July 2023 including representatives of about thirty internal medicine societies and associations, and the team concluded with ten recommendations for health professionals.

These include education on the One Health concept, which should be mandatory in undergraduate and postgraduate training and introduced into scientific meetings. Research in this area should be encouraged and supported, and health systems capable of responding to unexpected events should be established.

Moreover, the recommendations insist on the protection of the most vulnerable groups, on exemplary behaviors to protect the environment, and on the role of internal medicine as a central specialty for responding to the consequences of environmental change.