Climate change will have more severe effect on health of C-K residents in future

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Climate change is already impacting the health of people in Chatham-Kent, but its effects will become more severe by 2050, a public health inspector told the Chatham-Kent Board of Health Wednesday.

Emily Morrison, with the local health unit, compiled evidence for the board explaining current and potential health impacts due to warmer average annual temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events.

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Chatham-Kent is expected to have average temperature within the next 10-30 years of 11.9 Celsius, which Morrison said is comparable to current conditions seen about 600 kilometres south in Frankfort, Ky.

The area will also have 69 days per year with temperatures above 30 C, said Morrison, up from the 16 days on average over the last 30 years.

She said precipitation levels are expected to increase almost 30 per cent by 2050 in the municipality, which is on par with the Maritime provinces.

“Climate change is a health issue and it’s actually one of the most important health issues of our time,” she said. “These types of changes to our climate create hazards that impact health and those health impact impacts have serious consequences.”

The increasing temperatures can cause heat exhaustion and support growth of parasites and bacteria, which increase the rate of illnesses like salmonella and E. coli infection, said Morrison.

As well, more days above 30 C and higher levels of precipitation can create habitats which support growth of insects not usually seen in Chatham-Kent, possibly leading to more cases of diseases spread by insects like West Nile Virus and Lyme disease, she said.

Morrison noted the Windsor Essex County Public Health Unit discovered a mosquito capable of carrying the Zika virus in 2017 and people have brought in ticks never before seen by the local health unit. This included the lone star tick, which is more commonly seen in the southern U.S. and the Midwest.

In 2017, 153 billion hours of labour were lost worldwide due to extreme heat, she said.

“I think it’s important to know that as a rural community with a strong farming community, most of these losses occurred in agricultural sectors,” said Morrison.

“What happens when it is very hot is our bodies try to shed heat by sweating. When the temperature is too extreme, our temperature regulation system can become overwhelmed and this can lead to things like heat exhaustion, heat stroke and, in severe cases, death.”

According to the report, between 15,000 and 20,000 residents of Chatham-Kent live in flood-prone areas.

Morrison said flooding is “one of our bigger concerns” because of the higher precipitation levels expected.

People at risk include those who have difficulty evacuating, either due to fewer resources or mobility limitations, she said.

Morrison referred to an extreme rainfall event in Burlington in 2014, which damaged about 3,000 homes and caused lasting health impacts.

“Three years later, 50 per cent of the people who were affected said that they were still experiencing negative mental health impacts as a direct result of that flooding, and it was affecting their work,” she said. “People lost, on average, seven work days each.”

Although Chatham-Kent’s air quality has improved over the last 10 years, pollution comes in from the U.S., and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is predicting air quality will decline, said Morrison.

“In terms of both the sheer number of people in this community who are susceptible and the levels of air pollution we have here, Chatham-Kent is one of the most vulnerable regions in Canada when it comes to air quality,” she said.

Exposure to ultraviolet radiation is also expected to increase as depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere increases, potentially putting more people at risk of skin cancer.

Morrison said this presentation was a first step of a larger project and the health unit will be working with different departments of the municipality and community partners to address these issues.

“Climate change just affects so many different areas of health and in ways that you don’t always expect and so many people are vulnerable in so many different ways,” she said. “We really do need to plan to how we’re going to promote health in our community moving forward.”

This article has been updated from a previous version to reflect that Frankfort, Ky. is 600 kilometres, not 600 metres, south of Chatham-Kent.