Website of the Department of Health

Health effects of climate change in the UK - 2001/2002 report

At the request of the DH, the Expert Group on Climate Change and Health in the UK reported on the likely impact of climate change on health, and implications for the NHS. The report discusses public perceptions of the impact of climate change on health, and available methods for assessing health implications of climate change. It goes on to present an overview of the subject, and to discuss potential effects of measures aimed at mitigating climate change. It makes a series of tentative predictions relating to cold and heat-related deaths, food poisoning, vector-borne and water-borne diseases, disasters caused by gales and coastal flooding, effects of air pollutants and ozone, skin cancer, and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An annex lists members of the Expert Group. References cited at the end of each chapter.

The electronic version of this document as a single very large file (NB 7.9Mb) and also in individual sections, which should be easier to download. You may sometimes need to page down the PDF document to find the relevant section, for example, 1.2.1, 4.3 and 4.4.

• Download complete document (PDF, 7747K)
• Download Preface, contents & executive summary (PDF, 114K)
• Download 1. Introduction (PDF, 34K)
• Download 1.1. The relationship of the health effects report with the UK climate impacts programme (PDF, 39K)
• Download 1.2. What is happening to global climate and why? (PDF, 110K)
• Download 1.2.1 What are climate change scenarios? (PDF, 41K)
• Download 1.2.2 Observed trends in UK climate (PDF, 492K)
• Download 1.2.4 Future changes in UK climate (fig 1.8) (PDF, 960K)
• Download 1.2.4 Future changes in UK climate (figs 1.9 & 1.10) (PDF, 106K)
• Download 1.2.4 Future changes in UK climate (figs 1.11 & 1.12) (PDF, 1899K)
• Download 1.2.5 Consideration of uncertainties (PDF, 48K)
• Download 2. Public perception of the health impacts of climate change (PDF, 32K)
• Download 3. Methods to assess the effects of climate change on health (PDF, 117K)
• Download 4. Overview of climate change impacts on human health in the UK (PDF, 154K)
• Download 4.2. Food poisoning and climate change (PDF, 148K)
• Download 4.3. Vector-borne diseases and climate change (PDF, 78K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.6 (PDF, 21K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.7 (PDF, 16K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.8 (PDF, 29K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.9 (PDF, 397K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.10 (PDF, 413K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.11 (PDF, 645K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.12 (PDF, 647K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.13 (PDF, 416K)
• Download 4.3. Figure 4.14 (PDF, 409K)
• Download 4.4. Water-borne diseases and climate change (PDF, 85K)
• Download 4.5. Windstorms and climate change (PDF, 99K)
• Download 4.6 Flooding and climate change (PDF, 786K)
• Download 4.7. Air pollution and climate change (PDF, 217K)
• Download 4.8. UV Radiation (PDF, 82K)
• Download 5. Secondary impacts of mitigation (PDF, 34K)
• Download 6. Recommendation for further work (PDF, 28K)