Translating the effects of climate change into health impacts: new perspectives in health attribution studies

Human-induced climate change is threatening hard-earned progress in public health. Extreme weather events, rising temperatures and related socioeconomic impacts are responsible for a substantial mortality and morbidity burden. The escalating health impacts are expected to amplify in coming decades as warming progresses and other societal challenges such as urbanisation, ageing and inequalities continue to expand. Quantifying robust estimates of health impacts attributed to anthropogenic climate change is a pressing issue and a high-priority research area nowadays. In recent years, substantive progress has been made in this field by developing new research and providing cutting-edge evidence. The main booster has been the establishment of interdisciplinary initiatives that have allowed the exchange of ideas, data and methods between mainly climate scientists and epidemiologists. The talk will provide an overview on the latest developments in health impact attribution (e.g., storylines of climate-health impacts, accounting for adaptation), and discuss the current and potential synergies between research fields, applications (e.g., climate litigation) and existing knowledge gaps.