“Climate Change: The Public Health Response” talked about the the ways in which public health professionals are preparing for climate change and the significance of this. But how is climate change something that affects public health? Things like increased heat stress could affect people's health in a certain area. Food and water-borne diseases can be caused by changes in the weather, as can motor-vehicle crashes. For example, extreme rain or storms can cause both of these things. This isn't something that had ever occurred to me before as a result of the climate. Even an incidence as simple as falling down due to slipping on ice can be a public health risk caused by the weather!
Mitigation is basically preventing climate change as much as possible before it inevitably occurs. In other words, mitigation coupled prevents some of its effects all together. Mitigation relates to primary prevention in that it's the first step or measure taken to prevent climate change, as aforementioned. Adaptation's purpose is to decrease the intensity of the effect of climate change after it has already occurred. It is a form of secondary or tertiary prevention because it focuses on making something more manageable, rather than preventing it's occurrence, and thus adaptation is implemented after mitigation.
“Climate Change: The Public Health Response” mentioned ten different public health services that act as a basis for climate change adaptation. One that particularly resonated with me was the responsibility of public health officials to inform, educate and empower people about health issues. Like me, there are many individuals who are somewhat ignorant to the close relationship between climate change and public health. This is definitely something worth working on. As the article explained, the spread of knowledge is only the first step. With that knowledge, people can be motivated to act as agents of change when it comes to public health matters, once they realize that climate change affects them and the people they love as well.
My hometown, Warwick NY, has done just a few things in order to fight or prepare for climate change. Firstly, we have adopted part of the Appalachian Trail and the students in my high school's environmental science department are responsible for maintaining the portion of the trail we've adopted, by keeping it clean and making sure no harm comes to it. This way, the trail and the nature surrounding it is being protected instead of destroyed. In addition to this, my town, despite it's small size, is building wind turbines at one of our elementary schools in order to harness energy from wind and save energy. More can definitely be done, but first people need to be educated on the problems that currently exist and the ways in which they can potentially make a difference.
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