By Graham Pike
As extreme weather events dominate headlines across the globe, the links between climate change, health, and infection prevention have never been clearer. In this blog, Graham Pike explores how the healthcare community, and IPC professionals in particular, can play a vital role in building a more sustainable, resilient future.
We’ve all seen the news of weather-related challenges and disasters around the world in recent times. So far in 2026, we’ve had very severe wind and rain in the UK leading to flooding and damaged infrastructure, country-wide snowstorms and plunging temperatures in the US, and near 50°C heat in Australia. All of these events have become increasingly more likely with a warming global climate, which also makes weather systems more volatile and unpredictable. Think of how the water swirls chaotically when you heat a pot of water on a stove – that’s essentially what’s happening with weather systems as the atmosphere warms.
And it very much is warming. Roughly 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial times might not sound like much, but it takes a lot of energy to make an entire planet that much warmer. Richard Allan, Professor of Climate Science at Reading University, illustrates the scale of this by pointing out that at the start of 2023, the planet was heating at a rate equivalent to every person currently alive (roughly 8 billion people) each using SIXTY kettles to boil the ocean.
This extra heat in the atmosphere comes with consequences for weather and climate, but also for human health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes how Climate change is ‘impacting health in a myriad of ways, including by leading to death and illness from increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, storms and floods, the disruption of food systems, increases in zoonoses and food-, water- and vector-borne diseases, and mental health issues. Furthermore, climate change is undermining many of the social determinants for good health, such as livelihoods, equality and access to health care and social support structures. These climate-sensitive health risks are disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, including women, children, ethnic minorities, poor communities, migrants or displaced persons, older populations, and those with underlying health conditions.’
Many of these changes described by WHO will impact IPC, most obviously the changes around zoonoses and food/water/vector-borne diseases, but also because we know that comorbidities and health inequalities lead to worse outcomes from infection (as seen so vividly during the COVID pandemic).
So climate change is going to affect – in fact is already affecting – us all. It will impact both our personal and our professional lives. But we can all take action to help prevent further warming.Every fraction of a degree of warming we can prevent will mean lives saved, disasters avoided and a more liveable planet.
In healthcare that means using resources more wisely, in ways that are safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and patient-centred. This is very much aligned with what good IPC should be about anyway! We can use our IPC expertise to identify workable changes, to help evaluate and mitigate risks effectively and efficiently, and to help overcome perceived barriers.
Climate change is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time but also an opportunity for innovation and leadership within IPC. By applying our expertise to sustainability, we can make healthcare safer for patients and for the planet.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the connections between IPC and sustainable healthcare, join us at our IPC Route to Net Zero conference in Sheffield, or online, on 13 March. Book your place here.
