Climate events cost billions to Americans' public health, study finds

In this Aug. 16, 2012 file photo, mosquitos are sorted at the Dallas County mosquito lab in Dallas. In this Aug. 16, 2012 file photo, mosquitos are sorted at the Dallas County mosquito lab in Dallas. Photo: LM Otero, STF Photo: LM Otero, STF Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Climate events cost billions to Americans' public health, study finds 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Climate events such as the spread of West Nile virus in Texas and wildfires in Colorado had a significant impact on public health but are rarely included in analyses of the economic costs of severe climate events, a new study found.

The study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental nonprofit organization, and the University of California, San Francisco, analyzed state-collected health data for 10 climate-sensitive events in the U.S. in 2012.

The study found that these events, which also included extreme heat and hurricanes, caused an additional $10 billion in health costs in 2012.

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The West Nile virus in Texas that year led to 89 premature deaths and 1,628 hospital admissions, researchers found, representing $1.1 billion in additional health costs in the state.

Texas suffered the highest number of West Nile virus deaths in the nation during the outbreak, and previous scientific studies found that environmental factors increased the number of cases in the state. Drought created stagnant water pools, which increased the number of mosquitoes, and higher-than-average temperatures shortened the time it took for the disease to become transmissible within a mosquito.

The analysis of 2012 data also included wildfires in Colorado and Washington, ozone air pollution in Nevada, extreme heat in Wisconsin, outbreaks of tick-borne Lyme disease in Michigan, extreme weather in Ohio, Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York, allergenic oak pollen in North Carolina, and harmful algal blooms on the Florida coast.

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Typically, government cost analyses of extreme weather events include property, agriculture and infrastructure losses. That leaves out deaths, hospitalizations, emergency department visits, outpatient medical care and prescribed medications, researchers said.

"Climate change represents a major public health emergency," said the study's lead author, Dr. Vijay Limaye, a scientist in NRDC's Science Center. "But its destructive and expensive toll on Americans' health has largely been absent from the climate policy debate."