As many as 250,000 people could die each year from the effects of global warming between the years 2030 and 2050, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Heat exposure is expected to become a more pronounced problem in coming decades, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that claims the lives of one million children each year, could become more prevalent with rising temperatures, the study warns.
"Population data [was] used together with the risk areas from the malaria model to estimate the future population at risk and the change in the population at risk from baseline climate," WHO officials wrote in the study.
While health problems related to global warming become more common, fewer children are expected to die from diarrheal disease and malnutrition.
Detrimental effects of global warming are expected to be felt unevenly in different areas of the world. Wealthier populations will be better able to deal with problems than less affluent nations. Most of the heat-related deaths are expected to take place in poorer regions of the world, the study concluded. However, even wealthy countries will feel negative effects of rising global temperatures.
"An increase in acute mortality associated with high temperatures has been observed in nearly all populations where it has been studied ... [A]n increase in mortality risk observed at both high and low temperatures in populations in temperate and cold climates ... and tropical and subtropical areas [is likely to occur]," researchers stated in the WHO report.
Even the United States, Canada, and Europe will see additional deaths caused by global warming, according to the study. Researchers at WHO estimate an additional 3,000 deaths each year in Canada and the United States due to rising temperatures, as well as 5,500 across the European continent, by the year 2030. Just 20 years later, the number of additional annual fatalities that could be traced to the effects of rising temperatures could rise to 6,100 in North America, as well as 10,500 in Europe.
Senior citizens are especially prone to heat-induced health problems, and as populations age, rising temperatures are expected to play a larger part in the mortality of elderly populations, according to the WHO study.
The new report is "a significant step forward in the global estimation of projected disease burden associated with climate change," Jeremy Hess, a physician and epidemiologist from Emory University, said.
Coastal flooding was the only weather-related health issue studied in this report, so the predicted numbers of additional heat-related deaths may be a conservative estimate.
Study of the effect of global warming on human health was profiled in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
