I recently came across this quarterly report from the Office for National Statistics, which I found interesting and I thought might be useful to others: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/climatech… (I have also added a link to it in the resource section). These reports bring together the latest UK climate change-related statistics and analysis from a range of sources, and this quarter’s theme is health and well-being. Some of the points I found most interesting were….
- Stark evidence that climate change is affecting health in the UK now - There were 3271 excess deaths in England and Wales during the five heat-periods between June and August 2022. The cause of excess death with the largest proportional increase during these periods was cardiac arrhythmias (17.4%).
- Our healthcare settings need to adapt – there were 5554 overheating occurrences (temperature exceeding 26 degrees Celsius) in clinical areas of English NHS Trusts in the financial year ending 2022.
- The health sector has made improvements, but not as quickly as other sectors – Greenhouse gas emissions from the UK’s human health and social work sector have fallen by 11% between 1990 and 2021, total UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 39% in the same period.
- A majority of the population are worried about climate change, and are taking action - 64% of adults in Great Britain said they were worried about the impact of climate change, and 64% have taken action to help tackle it in the past 12 months.
Hopefully this data could be useful for presentations, papers, or for informing discussions with colleagues or patients.
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