Climate and Health News

Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the Duke University School of Medicine Mary Klotman, MD, talks with Robert Tighe, MD, about the school’s new climate change research strategy, emphasizing the critical need to address the climate crisis and its impact on health.

In 2023 the global temperature climbed to the highest on record since the industrial revolution, and in the United States, heat-related deaths doubled between 1999 and 2023. Adverse effects of climate change often amplify risk for the most vulnerable groups, including the elderly, those with low incomes, and mothers and children.

Mapping the structure of an enzyme crucial for fungal survival also sheds light on how climate change is affecting the fungal world.

New research reveals shape-shifting proteins may help some organisms, like plants, adapt to rising temperatures. But this same ability could also lead to the emergence of dangerous fungal pathogens

Study of 107 older adults finds that non-white New York and North Carolina residents with mild cognitive impairment reside in places with more environmental injustices than their white peers.

Health experts at Duke University School of Medicine are scrutinizing the myriad ways in which shifting environmental conditions, from sweltering temperatures to severe storms, shape our well-being. 

Robert M. Tighe, MD, has been appointed to lead the development of the School of Medicine’s research strategy on the impact of climate change on health.  

DrPH. William Pan explores how issues such as malaria, human migration due to inhospitable environments and unhealthy iron levels exacerbated by flooding, contribute to humans being more susceptible to infectious and chronic disease, as well as issues with animal and ecosystem health.

The initial gift for the Duke Climate Commitment has provided funding for Climate and Health Data Expeditions, where interdisciplinary teams, pursue research on data-driven topics examining climate impacts and human health.