Climate change and air quality can affect health

The third National Climate Assessment report, due to be released this month, confirms both the role of human activities in causing climate change and the broad range of adverse health consequences that climate change brings. The federal government’s multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), established by Presidential initiative in 1989, produced the report.

The effects of climate change on human health are of particular concern to the physician and scientist members of the American Thoracic Society.

Our patients have cardiopulmonary disease and, therefore, are particularly su...