THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HUMAN HEALTH

Nowadays it is well known the fact that our health and wellbeing is impacted by climate change. Furthermore, climate changes it is claimed to be seen as one of the main critical public health problems from most of the international public health organizations of the world. Moreover, many existing diseases and conditions are getting worse as a result of climate change, but on the other side, it might help introduce new pests and pathogens to new communities or regions. Through climate change we understand that the planet gets warms and oceans expand, sea level rises, yet floods and droughts become more frequent and intense, while the heat waves and hurricanes become even more severe. On the other side, important target groups such as children, elderly, poor and especially those with underlying health conditions are more probably to face this risky health effects from climate change. It is worth mentioning that there exist some important steps that might be taken to decrease these climate change, a process known as the term mitigation and so we can reduce these impacts on our health and next generations – a known process called as an adaptation. All these processes are very helpful steps for our health, environment and society as well. Climate and weather can be seen as important factors that influence human health. In this context, we can say that the changes that appear in climate and climate variability, especially those weather extremes, they all affect the environment which on the other side provides us with clean air, food, water and security. Moreover, when they are combined together with certain other natural and health stressors caused by humans, threatens than it threatens the well-being and their health condition seriously. It is also important to mention that this situation it is also present in Europe as well, thus also present in the Republic of Macedonia. Finally, since projected impacts of climate change are supposed to increase over the next century there will also increase some existing health threats as well. That is why very important to understand how climate is changing as well as how those changes may affect human health, so when we can connect all these data we can make decisions about mitigating or reducing the amount of future climate change, through suggesting main priorities for protecting public health, as well as to helping identify such research needs. Eventually, a useful approach in order to understand how climate change affects health is to consider specific exposure pathways and how they can lead to human disease.Keywords: climate change, human health, weather, mitigation, exposure pathways