Climate change is making more people around the world vulnerable to heat exposure, putting them at greater risk of heart and kidney disease, heat stress and other heat-related killers, scientists warned Wednesday.
Global warming's effects look most serious for aging and urban populations and people with chronic health conditions. And Europe and the eastern Mediterranean are more vulnerable than Africa and Southeast Asia due to many older people living in densely populated cities, the researchers said in an analysis in The Lancet medical journal.
"Trends in the impacts of climate change, exposures and vulnerabilities show unacceptably high risk for health, now and in the future," said Hilary Graham, a professor at Britain's York University who co-led the work.