By Linnea Ritchie
When people are asked to say who is most from climate change, they are likely to respond by naming an endangered species or the children who will have to deal with the impact of global warming in the future. Children and animals are certainly at risk. However, scientists are also worried about another group of people: the elderly.
Vera Silseth, 65, of Syracuse, NY
Approximately 14.4 percent of New York state’s population is over the age of 65, including two residents of Syracuse, NY, Vera Silseth, 65, and Mark Watson, 67. In collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (C.D.C.), the New York State Department of Health has declared that the elderly are more at risk for negative health effects brought on by climate changes like excessive heat, droughts, floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather events, as well as diseases like Lyme disease and West Nile Virus.
According to the state health department’s 2015 Climate and Health Profile, the annual global temperature is predicted to increase by another four to 14°F by the year 2100. There has also been an increase in intense precipitation - up to 71 percent since 1958 in the Northeast United States. This increased precipitation made events like Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and Tropical Storm Lee all the more devastating.
The changes affect everyone in the state of New York, but senior citizens are considered to be more at risk because of their diminished health and mobility, among other reasons.
Mark Watson, 67, of Syracuse, NY
Both Silseth and Watson were very well-versed in the global causes of climate change.
“We basically found this oil stuff that worked pretty well, and we never really questioned it again” Watson said. “We just drill and drill and don’t worry about what it’s doing.”
However, the two seniors said they did not know much about the potential negative effects of climate change on a local level, and they were surprised to learn that New York State is already experiencing very severe consequences.
“You don’t imagine that lots of rain or snow in Syracuse could be something more than just northeastern weather” Watson said.
Since climate change can have varied effects in different places, it makes sense that the responses to these changes should be varied as well. The C.D.C. has created a program meant to help individual communities both assess and respond to the issues that directly affect their areas. The program, Building Resilience Against Climate Effects or BRACE, is meant to serve as a framework for individual states or cities to develop their own climate change adaptation plans. Using BRACE, public health risks can be assessed, and responses can be made on a local level. To date, 18 public health agencies, including those for New York State and New York City as well as other states and cities across the country, have begun using the BRACE system to prepare for climate change effects in their area. The BRACE program is also meant to identify people who are especially at risk, like Silseth and Watson.
Increased precipitation is especially threatening to New York State because areas like the Finger Lakes, the many rivers that serve as tributaries to the St. Lawrence River, and the communities surrounding the Great Lakes are prone to flooding.
Flooding can be devastating economically, but it can also have a profound effect on human health. Standing water such as puddles, for example, is an excellent breeding ground for disease-carrying animals like mosquitoes. Like many Americans, Mrs. Silseth and Mr. Watson were unaware that diseases like West Nile Virus were transmitted in the United States.
“Gosh, I thought that was one of those things someone brought back,” after being out of the country, said Silseth.
In fact, West Nile Virus was first found in New York City in 1999, and by 2003 it had spread across the country to California. The C.D.C. reported more than 16,000 cases of West Nile Virus in 17 states between 2001 and 2005. The World Health Organization predicts that for every 41°F increase in temperature, cases of West Nile Virus will increase by 32-50 percent. The elderly are especially susceptible to diseases like West Nile Virus because their immune systems are often weaker and less equipped to fight off the infection.
After learning about the possible health effects of climate change, Silseth and Watson were eager to find out possible solutions. Both agreed that the facts of climate change are indeed terrifying, and Watson commented that donations to save polar bears or replant rainforests won’t help anyone here in New York. Both seniors were immediately interested in the BRACE program.
“So, we are BRACE-ing for it eh?” Watson joked.
BRACE is all about assessing local risks. The first step in the program’s framework is to assess vulnerabilities in an area. In New York, for example, a major concern is rising sea level and the public health effects associated with extreme weather, extreme heat, and animal-borne diseases. According to the Office for Coastal Management, New York State has approximately 2,600 miles of coastline, with over 15.5 million people living on the coast. An additional 76,000 people live in the floodplain in Suffolk County. Economies in the coastal areas and the Great Lakes region also heavily depend on tourism.
The program’s first step also requires officials in the region to assess which populations are most at risk. The local BRACE agency produces a Climate & Health Profile report that characterizes the vulnerable populations in their area and details the health concerns associated with climate change. Citizens living on the coastline or in a floodplain are of course at risk of losing their property and livelihood, but threats like Lyme disease and West Nile Virus put even more people on the list of potential victims. New York State’s Climate & Health Profile Report found that there is a significant overlap between these last two groups. Unfortunately, many senior citizens are living below the federal poverty line, which only increases their vulnerability to climate change-associated health risks.
After assessing an area’s vulnerabilities, agency officials in the BRACE program examine the health risks more closely and determine what is called the “future disease burden,” basically an estimate of how much preventing these health crises will cost. Silseth immediately said that she believed that this was a worthwhile use of tax dollars. Watson, slightly more reserved in his approval, added that he believed the major contributors to climate change, such as oil companies, should have to take on most of the tax burden.
The BRACE program also identifies the steps to be taken at a local level in response to the identified health risks. These steps can be as simple as spraying pesticides aimed at reducing the mosquito population or creating an evacuation plan in case of extreme weather events. These efforts are especially important for the elderly population, many of whom live below the federal poverty line.
“Usually, those of us who are retired are living on much lower paychecks than we were when we were working,” Watson said. “I put money away my entire life, but buddies of mine who didn’t are living in crappy housing that doesn’t always have things like wheelchair ramps or AC.”
The elderly are more at risk for things heat stroke and heart failure due to increased temperatures. “Even here, summers are bad. I spent my girlhood in Arkansas and the heat was even more brutal. You wouldn’t expect the heat here to get so dangerous. But it does,” Silseth said.
Some activities, like hiking and gardening, put people at a higher risk of contracting insect-borne diseases like Lyme disease or West Nile Virus. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected tick. Cases in the United States have tripled in the last 30 years and experts say the warming climate has allowed the disease to spread farther north than ever before since the warmer temperatures allow ticks to survive for longer periods of time. The diminished capabilities of senior citizens’ immune systems mean that exposure to these diseases can have much more serious consequences. Neither Mr. Watson nor Mrs. Silseth were aware that activities like gardening increased their risk, nor that these diseases were related to climate change. Mrs. Silseth, a self-described “crazy garden lady” was particularly concerned about her birdbaths, since standing water is a known breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Watson and Silseth were both adamant that the risks associated with climate change needed to be better communicated.
“I never would have known any of this before now, all I knew was that the weather was supposed to be getting warmer” Watson said. “How can you protect yourself if you don’t know?”
Silseth added, referring to the New York State Health department, “I think they need to pay more attention to us if we are at risk, check up on elderly residents and make sure they have things like air conditioning and aren’t living somewhere that will put them in danger.”
Both Watson and Silseth agreed that education for the public about the risks related to climate change is what is most urgently needed.
The BRACE program is meant to set up a framework for local responses to climate change, but without public outreach, people will still be putting themselves at risk. Senior citizens and other at-risk populations must be better informed about what climate change could mean for them. Part of preventing health risks associated with climate change involves informing everyone, not just at-risk populations, about things like the possibility of contracting animal-borne diseases here in the United States.
Usually when we talk about climate change we talk about Florida slowly sinking into the ocean or offshore drilling hurling millions of pounds of carbon into the atmosphere. We think of crazy tropical storms battering the coast, or skinny polar bears struggling to stand on a small chunk of ice. While these are all important aspects of climate change and deserve the attention they receive, they can often seem too far away to worry about, which makes it easier for people to distance themselves from the very real consequences. The BRACE program highlights the local impacts, which, while they may be less dramatic than polar bears on thinning ice, are important to know about if unnecessary disease and death are to be prevented here at home.
Photos by Linnea Ritchie
