Climate Change as a Sociomedical Crisis: Heat, Vulnerability, and Health Inequity in the MENA Region

Abstract

 The MENA region is now recognized as being in a socio-medical crisis. For instance, extreme heat is occurring at the same time as water shortages. Moreover, air pollution and dust storms are on the rise. And, cities are urbanizing fast. As a result, already existing health inequalities across the region are aggravated. This article reviews climate change as a public health and social justice issue whereby exposure to heat largely affects older people, children, outdoor workers, low-income households, migrants, refugees and populations living in fragile or conflict-affected settings. The increase in temperature and urban heat islands increases the risk of heat-related illness, cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity, occupational injury, lost productivity and mental distress. Due to poor housing, limited cooling, weak infrastructure, insufficient surveillance, and unequal access to health care, the risk is exacerbated. The paper also outlines the indirect health impacts of climate change, stemming from water insecurity, food system disruption and the influence of infectious diseases and poverty. To take on this crisis, countries will need equity-oriented climate-health governance, early warning systems, heat action plans, resilient health-care infrastructure, occupational protection, urban cooling, social protection, and improved regional data. We must adopt a sociomedical approach to climate-related disease burden, as these are not evenly distributed. But rather are shaped by social determinants, political vulnerability and unequal adaptive capacity. It is, therefore, a public-health necessity and a moral imperative to bolster climate-health preparedness in MENA