Climate change and heat stress
The world is experiencing increased ambient temperatures and more frequent and intense heat waves, which are associated with a variety of adverse health outcomes such as acute heat-related illnesses (i.e., heat rash, heat stroke, etc.), as well as other conditions like increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Concurrently, more people are migrating to urban settings, where ambient temperatures are generally higher and there is an increase in air pollution, noise, and lack of environmental enrichment, which has been shown to have a negative impact on cardiovascular, pulmonary, and behavioral health outcomes through increased psychosocial stress. Physiological and mechanistic understanding of the effect of heat on human health and the interaction between non-chemical (i.e., psychosocial stress and heat) stressors are still needed to characterize susceptibility and develop mitigation strategies. This chapter provides a brief overview of climate change and extreme heat events and the corresponding adverse health outcomes, as well as potential mechanisms that might underlie these effects, which range from perturbations in thermoregulation to disruption of autonomic function.