Environmental change, climate and health: issues and research methods

The advent of global environmental change, with all its uncertainties and requirement for long-term prediction, brings new challenges and tasks for scientists, the public and policy makers. A major environmental upheaval such as climate change is likely to have significant health effects. Current mainstream epidemiological research methods do not always adequately address the health impacts that arise within a context in which the ecological and other biophysical processes display non-linear and feedback-dependent relationships. The agenda of research and policy advice must be extended to include the larger-framed environmental change issues. This book identifies the nature and scope of the problem, and explores the conceptual and methodological approaches to studying these relationships, modelling their future realisation, providing estimates of health impacts, and communicating the attendant uncertainties. This timely volume will be of great interest to health scientists and graduate students with an interest in the effects of global environmental change.