Impact of Climate Change on Eye Diseases and Associated Economical Costs
Metadata
Show full item recordAuthor
Echevarría Lucas, Lucía; Senciales González, José Mª; Medialdea Hurtado, María Eloísa; Rodrigo Comino, JesúsEditorial
MDPI
Materia
Ocular diseases Environmental factors Climate change Economic Impact Southern Spain
Date
2021-07-05Referencia bibliográfica
Echevarría-Lucas, L... [et al.]. Impact of Climate Change on Eye Diseases and Associated Economical Costs. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 7197. [https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18137197]
Sponsorship
PAIDI Group RNM-279Abstract
Climate change generates negative impacts on human health. However, little is known
about specific impacts on eye diseases, especially in arid and semi-arid areas where increases in
air temperatures are expected. Therefore, the main goals of this research are: (i) to highlight the
association between common eye diseases and environmental factors; and (ii) to analyze, through
the available literature, the health expenditure involved in combating these diseases and the savings
from mitigating the environmental factors that aggravate them. Mixed methods were used to assess
the cross-variables (environmental factors, eye diseases, health costs). Considering Southern Spain
as an example, our results showed that areas with similar climatic conditions could increase eye
diseases due to a sustained increase in temperatures and torrential rains, among other factors. We
highlight that an increase in eye diseases in Southern Spain is conditioned by the effects of climate
change by up to 36.5%; the economic burden of the main eye diseases, extrapolated to the rest of the
country, would represent an annual burden of 0.7% of Spain’s Gross Domestic Product. In conclusion,
the increase in eye diseases has a strong economic and social impact that could be reduced with
proper management of the effects of climate change. We propose a new concept: disease sink, defined
as any climate change mitigation action which reduces the incidence or morbidity of disease.