5.3.2Active indicatorScientific Engagement on the Health Impacts of Climate Change
5.3Scientific engagement with health and climate change
5.4Political engagement with health and climate change
Indicator 5.3.2 · Engagement
Scientific Engagement on the Health Impacts of Climate Change
Understanding how human-caused climate change is already affecting health is essential for strengthening the evidence base for climate and health action. Scientific studies increasingly examine health impacts associated with changes in temperature and precipitation in places where those climatic changes can be attributed to human influence. Building on indicator 5.3.1., this indicator tracks the growth of this evidence base.
Headline finding
In 2025, a record 3,400 scientific articles linked health impacts to temperature or precipitation changes attributable to human-caused climate change - 19% more than the previous peak in 2023.
Data: loading…
Figure 1
Scientific Engagement on the Health Impacts of Climate Change
Number of climate and health articles by climate change impact and health effect, from 1990 to 2025. Articles are grouped by country, Human Development Index (HDI) group, Lancet Countdown region, or World Health Organization (WHO) region based on the geographical location mentioned in the article abstract.
Loading chart…
About this indicator
Description
Attributable effects are identified by linking studies on climate impacts with data from climate models and observational record. Attribution is based on human-attributable changes in temperature and precipitation, and the identified health impacts co-referenced with geographical locations in the title or abstract.
Authors
Last updated
March 2026
Data downloads
Caveats
The method cannot fully attribute the health outcomes identified in each study to human influence on the climate. Rather, it shows where the health outcomes of changes in climate variables coincide geographically with changes in those variables that can be attributed to human influence. This indicator is only based on English-language literature, which might bias which regions are well represented.
Data sources
- OpenAlex database
- GeoNames gazetteer
- CMIP3 and CMIP5 climate model data
- UN world population prospects data