Review
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
The Challenge of Controlling Urban Mosquito-Borne Diseases in a Changing Urban Climate
Version 1
: Received: 25 February 2021 / Approved: 26 February 2021 / Online: 26 February 2021 (08:27:16 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Journal reference: IJERPH 2021
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18095035
Abstract
Cities worldwide are facing ever-increasing pressure to develop mitigation strategies for all sectors to deal with the impacts of climate change. Cities are expected to house 70% of the world’s population by 2050 and developing related resilient health systems is a significant challenge. Because of their physical nature, cities’ surface temperatures are often substantially higher than that of the surrounding rural areas, generating the so-called Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Whilst considerable emphasis has been placed on strategies to mitigate against the UHI-associated negative health effects of heat and pollution, the World Health Organization estimates that one of the main consequences of global warming will be an increased burden of such vector-borne diseases. Many of the major mosquito-borne diseases are urban and thus the global population exposed to these pathogens will steadily increase. Mitigation strategies beneficial for one sector may, however, be detrimental for another. Implementation of inter-sectoral strategies that can benefit many sectors (such as water, labour and health) do exist and would enable optimal use of the meagre resources available. Discussion among inter-sectoral stakeholders should be actively encouraged.
Keywords
Climate change; Urban Heat Islands; Mosquito-borne Disease; Mitigation Strategies
Subject
LIFE SCIENCES, Biochemistry
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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