The Lancet Planetary Health, May 2025

Climate disaster effects on acute health care: a case study and model of the 2021 heatwave in British Columbia, Canada

Climate hazards threaten the safety of health-care providers, disrupt utility networks, and damage health facilities precisely when demands for health care surge. Although upstream adaptations (eg, addressing social determinants of health) are foundational to climate resilience, there is also a need to ensure acute health-care systems are able to deliver care when preventive measures fall short.

Indeed, the rapid increase in climate threats to health, high uncertainty around cascading impacts, and slow deployment of transformative adaptations mean that climate impacts on acute health are likely to increase in the short term unless disaster preparedness is also scaled up.