Future Proofing Our Hearts to Climate Change

In the last chapter, the embryonic evidence (essentially derived from one, relatively positive, COVID-19 cruelled randomised trialRandomised trial) in respect to the possibility of restoring/promoting resilience in people hospitalised with multimorbid heart diseaseHeart disease was presented. However, prevention is always better than cure! Thus, just as the ‘interconnectedness’ of the different spheres that comprise our planet was highlighted in terms of the impact of pollutionPollution earlier in this book and considering the tenant of the UNSDGsUnited Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), it is critical for us to proactively address climate vulnerability from multiple perspectives. Specifically, at multiple levels, there is urgent need for the world/us to—(1) Recognise the pre-existing to evolving threat (due to climate changeClimate change) of climatic provocations to heart healthHeart health, (2) Develop a more systematic approach to recognising which regions and communities are most ‘vulnerable’ to climatic challenges (from multiple perspectives), (3) Implement a range of public health measures from raising public awarenessClimate awareness to implementing broad public health strategies to promote and enhance climatic resilienceClimatic resilience at the population level, and, beyond the need to reframe the clinical management of people hospitalised for heart diseaseHeart disease, to reduce their risk of readmissions and premature mortality due to pre-existing vulnerability to climate provocations—(4) Strengthen primary carePrimary care health care teams/services to proactively detect and then manage at risk/vulnerable individuals before they are hospitalised and/or die prematurely due to climatic provocations to their cardiovascular health. Such primary carePrimary care capacity would also ensure the optimal, post-discharge management of those hospitalised with heart diseaseHeart disease from this novel perspective. Bringing all the current evidence in this regard together, this chapter provides a critical review of the progress made thus far around these four key points.