Top climate-driven health risks for healthcare workers TABLE 7 Mental health Heightened patient treatment demand and severity increases workload and exposure to trauma, intensifying stress and burnout for healthcare practitioners. Hospital care workers who cared for COVID-19 patients were found to be 1.3 times more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and PTSD.68Zoonoses and infectious disease exposure Healthcare professionals have an increased risk of contracting climate-related illnesses that spread from human contact due to exposure to infected patients. Injury and mortality As extreme weather events increase, first responders and frontline workers, especially in vulnerable regions, face higher risks of injury and death. 5.3 Economic impact Increasing rates of ill health across the globe will fuel demand for climate-focused treatments. Healthcare providers will face growing demand for treatment of chronic climate-related illnesses, with an emphasis on preventive care. Extreme weather events will also lead to an increased need for emergency care services. Rising rates of climate-related conditions will also drive demand for medical treatments and technologies such as cooling therapies and wearables. Surging demand will also increase the strain on physical capital (like care facilities). Climate-driven disease surges (for example, dengue outbreaks) can overwhelm patient care facilities and prevent them from effectively addressing their existing non-climate-related health caseload. Increased physical capacity may therefore be required to meet population needs during epidemics or heatwaves. This can require significant financial investment. Unless significant action is taken, it’s projected that the cost of lost worker availability in the healthcare sector due to select climate change-driven health risks will amount to at least $200 billion from 2025 to 2050 (see Annex for methodology). Rising worker illness rates reduce labour productivity due to presenteeism, absences and mortality. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, resulted in $200 million in productivity losses due to healthcare worker morbidity and mortality in the KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape provinces in South Africa during the first year.69This reduction of labour productivity will worsen patient outcomes, creating a detrimental cycle of reduced care and increased strain on the sector. Consider that the loss of healthcare workers to Ebola during the 2014 epidemic is estimated to have increased maternal mortality by 38% in Guinea, 74% in Sierra Leone and 111% in Liberia.70 Climate change-driven illness will increasingly disrupt health and healthcare supply chains due to reduced labour availability and restrictions on transport and trade. Worker illness and disease outbreaks disrupt trade and reduce productivity at manufacturing sites, limiting output and weakening health supply chains. For example, illness among workers in a pharmaceutical manufacturing site during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in supply shortages of critical medical products.71 In addition to health-related disruptions, supply chains are also vulnerable to physical climate risks – such as floods, wildfires and extreme heat – which can damage infrastructure, interrupt logistics and delay production. These disruptions are not limited to climate-health treatment – they pose a risk to all medicines. At the same time, acute climate events create unpredictable demand surges, delaying preventive and elective care while sharply increasing the need for emergency medical supplies and services. Given these challenges, building supply chain resilience should be a priority for healthcare. This report, however, does not cover broader supply chain strategies, and instead focuses specifically on interventions for safeguarding health. The WHO projects a global shortfall of 18 million healthcare workers by 2030, with the widest gaps expected in regions with the fastest-growing health needs. Building Economic Resilience to the Health Impacts of Climate Change 30

Building Economic Resilience to the Health Impacts of Climate Change 2025