Global Climate Change and Women’s Health

Global climate change affects human health through increased heat stress, poor air quality, extreme weather events, altered transmission of vector-borne diseases, and water and food insecurity. The impacts of climate change on health affect women and men differently, depending on local, cultural, socioeconomic, and physiological factors. Policy action targeted towards these factors, which are often modifiable, can decrease negative health consequences and improve efforts for climate adaptation and mitigation. There is an urgent need to better understand how climate change affects sexual and gender minorities, and to explore more complex multidimensional and non-binary social intersections that determine communities’ responses to climate change.