An estimated 2,135 additional people could die every year in the United States as a result of climate change-related injuries like assaults, drownings and falls, if temperatures rise 2°C over current long-term averages, according to findings published in Nature Medicine earlier this week.
While researchers have studied the intersection of health and climate change before, the focus has been on chronic and infectious diseases; in the latter category, malaria is considered an especially serious threat. Little research, however, has been done on the impact climate change can have on injuries which is the cause of 10% of deaths worldwide.