Climate-Driven Variations in Cardiovascular Events

Previous chaptersCardiovascular events have focussed on the broader picture of global health in the context of climate changeClimate change, before examining why climatic conditions/acute weather events can influence an individual’s heart and broader cardiovascular health through the lens of ‘vulnerability to resilience’. In doing so, an argument for why and how we should alter our collective thinking around the role of climate and health (essentially embracing a new paradigm in providing clinical care) is urgently needed. However, such a radical change would be pointless, or at least a low priority, if there was little evidence that health outcomes are indeed—(1) Shaped and influenced by the weather/climatic conditions, thereby resulting in clinically significant variations in event rates and, (2) Climate change is likely to exacerbate the problem in terms of provoking more events that might be preventable. Thus, in the context of a growing body of research and published data (much of which is gravitating towards a more simplistic “heat is bad” mindset), this chapter provides hard evidence that the timing and frequency of concrete events such as hospital admissions and deaths linked to cardiovascular disease and the main subtypes of heart diseaseHeart disease are not random. Instead, they ebb and flow according to both predictable climatic transitions (seasons) and unpredictable weather conditions (heatwavesHeatwaves and cold spells) in different ways.