How Climate Change Affects Your Health

This patient fact sheet from the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment outlines the various ways climate change negatively impacts human health, specifically focusing on risks to Canadians including heat-related illnesses, air pollution, mental health, vector-borne diseases, and threats to food and water security.

• Climate change exacerbates several health risks in Canada: heat waves may double or triple in frequency over 30 years if emissions are not slowed, and air pollution causes roughly 14,000 premature deaths annually. Air quality is further degraded by climate-driven increases in dust from droughts, wildfires, and pollen spikes.
• The spread of vector-borne diseases is increasing across Canada. Specifically, Lyme Disease has impacted more than 2,000 people across several provinces, and West Nile Virus has affected over 6,000 Canadians over a twenty-year period.
• Extreme weather events, which have seen approximately 200 disaster-level occurrences in Canada over the last decade, pose risks of injury, death, and the disruption of essential services such as health care, power, food supplies, and safe water.

APA

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (2019). How Climate Change Affects Your Health. https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Patient-Factsheet-Sept.-2019.pdf

Chicago

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. How Climate Change Affects Your Health. 2019. https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Patient-Factsheet-Sept.-2019.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment |title=How Climate Change Affects Your Health |date=September 2019 |url=https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Patient-Factsheet-Sept.-2019.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{canadianassociationofphysiciansfortheenvironment2019how, author = {{Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment}}, title = {{How Climate Change Affects Your Health}}, institution = {Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Patient-Factsheet-Sept.-2019.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }