The health of populations in Europe will be affected in the coming decades by global climate changes. Adaptation is a key response strategy to minimize potential impacts of climate change, and to reduce, with the least cost, the adverse effects on health.

cCASHh investigated some of the many ways in which climate change affects health by carrying out a combination of impact and adaptation assessment for four climate-related health outcomes:

• health effects of heat and cold;
• health effects of extreme weather events;
• infectious diseases transmitted by insects and ticks, e.g. tick-borne encephalitis, malaria (vectorborne and rodentborne diseases);
• infectious diseases transmitted in the water supply or through food (waterborne and foodborne diseases).

Floods and heat-waves have direct effects on health. Foodborne and vectorborne diseases are indirect effects of climate change through change in seasonal patterns of diseases.

Main conclusions

cCASHh has provided timely and critical information on "now and how" strategies for health threats from climate change. Many conclusions have been drawn from analysis of the health impacts of the 2002 floods and the 2003 heat-wave. This information is being used to design new policies and improve measures to address morbidity and mortality due to flooding and heat-waves. It is not apparent that improvements are taking place quickly enough in those risk areas where no recent disasters or emergencies have occurred.

Any comprehensive long-term strategy for minimizing the risks associated with global climate change requires the combination of planned adaptation (now and how) and mitigation of climate change. International burden-sharing is needed to distribute the costs of adaptation according to the vulnerability of countries to climate change.