by David Crouse, PhD

Climate change, often leading to dramatic changes in weather patterns, has clearly been shown to have an impact on human health, both physical and mental. This has been the central topic of major medical and science publications for the past two or three years ^1,2,3,4,5,6. I thought it would be interesting to see if a couple of the new Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications could draft a concise and correct essay in response to the question “What is the impact of climate change on human health?”. Here is the response from Bing Chat.

Climate change has a significant impact on human health in both direct and indirect ways ¹. Extreme heat waves, rising sea levels, changes in precipitation resulting in flooding and droughts, and intense hurricanes can directly cause injury, illness, and even death ¹. The effects of climate change can also indirectly affect health through alterations to the environment. For example, worsening air pollution levels can have negative impacts on respiratory and cardiovascular conditions ¹. Changes in temperature and rainfall can alter the survival, distribution, and behavior of insects and other species that can lead to changes in infectious diseases ¹. Increases in precipitation, storm surge, and sea temperature can lead to more water-related illnesses ¹. Climate change can also affect food safety, exposing people to contaminated foods that can result in foodborne illnesses ¹. In addition, climate change can affect mental health and well-being ¹. Exposure to climate-related hazards can include biological, chemical, or physical stressors and can differ in time, locations, populations, and severity ¹. These threats can occur simultaneously, resulting in compounding health impacts. Climate change threats may also accumulate over time, leading to longer-term changes in resilience and health ¹. While everyone is exposed to climate-related health threats, not everyone experiences the same harms. Individuals may experience greater risk from climate-related health effects because they have greater exposure to climate-related hazards, they are more sensitive to the effects of climate stressors, their own present state of health and wellbeing, or they do not have sufficient capacity or resources to cope or remove themselves from harm ¹. An effective public health response to mitigate the risks of climate change is essential to preventing injuries and illnesses and enhancing overall public health preparedness ¹.

Almost every sentence in this text is referenced ⁽¹⁾ to the same website: Human Health Impacts of Climate Change (nih.gov) from the NIH, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. I would give Bing Chat an “F” because the AI essentially copied the NIH document, even though it was correctly “cited” at the end of each sentence. To demonstrate this, click on every sentence highlighted in red and it will take you to the very detailed NIH website.

I then tried the same question with ChatGPT, a more advanced AI system. Here is what I got:

Climate change has significant and wide-ranging impacts on human health, affecting both physical and mental well-being. These impacts are the result of various interconnected environmental, social, and economic factors. Some of the key ways in which climate change affects human health include:

1. 1. 1. Heat-related illnesses: Rising temperatures and heatwaves can lead to an increased incidence of heat-related illnesses, such as heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, children, and individuals with pre-existing health conditions, are at higher risk.
      2. Respiratory problems: Climate change can exacerbate air pollution and increase the prevalence of allergenic pollen, which can worsen respiratory conditions like asthma and allergies. Wildfires, fueled by drier conditions and higher temperatures, can also release harmful particulate matter and toxic gases into the air.
      3. Vector-borne diseases: Climate change can alter the distribution and behavior of disease-carrying vectors, such as mosquitoes and ticks. This can lead to an expansion of diseases like malaria, dengue fever, Zika virus, and Lyme disease into new regions, putting more people at risk of infection.
      4. Waterborne diseases: Increased temperatures and altered precipitation patterns can affect water quality and contribute to the spread of waterborne diseases like cholera and other gastrointestinal illnesses.
      5. Food security and malnutrition: Climate change can disrupt food production by causing crop failures, shifting growing seasons, and increasing the occurrence of pests and diseases. This can lead to food shortages and rising food prices, which can result in malnutrition, especially among vulnerable populations.
      6. Extreme weather events: More frequent and severe weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, can result in injuries, displacement, and damage to healthcare infrastructure. Displacement, in particular, can lead to mental health issues and increased vulnerability.
      7. Mental health impacts: Climate change-related events, such as natural disasters and long-term environmental changes, can contribute to stress, anxiety, and depression, both directly and indirectly. Loss of homes, livelihoods, and communities can be traumatic and lead to long-lasting mental health issues.
      8. Spread of infectious diseases: Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns can affect the transmission dynamics of various infectious diseases, such as West Nile virus, Zika virus, and Lyme disease. These shifts can create new risks for human health.
      9. Water scarcity: Droughts and reduced water availability due to climate change can impact hygiene, sanitation, and the availability of clean drinking water, increasing the risk of waterborne diseases and dehydration.
      10. Disruption of healthcare systems: Climate-related events can damage healthcare infrastructure, making it harder for communities to access medical care during crises. This can result in delays in treatment and an increased burden on healthcare providers.

To mitigate these health impacts, it is crucial to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the changes already underway. This includes efforts to reduce carbon emissions, improve disaster preparedness and response, enhance public health systems, and address the social and economic determinants of health, such as poverty and inequality, that can exacerbate the effects of climate change on vulnerable populations. Public awareness, policy changes, and international cooperation are essential to protect human health in the face of a changing climate.

A very well constructed but completely unreferenced essay. This time I give it a “D” for lack of appropriate citation but a reasonable amount of originality and thoroughness.

From this exercise to see how AI would deal with a simple question that has a great depth in possible answers I came away relatively impressed with how thorough these tools could be and how difficult it would be for a teacher to separate originality from simple “copying”. At the same time, I could find no “errors” in their “answers”. Indeed, climate change does have many impacts on human health.

The references that I cited in the first paragraph follow:

1. JAMA Health Forum: “Time to treat the climate and nature crisis as one indivisible global health emergency”. October 25, 2023
2. BMJ Open: “Health effects of climate change: an overview of systematic reviews.” May 28, 2021.
3. NEJM: “Climate change and vectorborne diseases”, November 24, 2022.
4. Nature Human Behaviour: “Climate change and human behaviour” November, 2022.
5. Inter Academy Partnership: “Health in the climate emergency: a global perspective” May, 2022.
6. JAMA: “UN report new insights on link between climate change and human health”, June 1, 2022.