PLoS Articles Examine Connection Between Climate Change, Public Health

"Top-down advocacy on health and climate at the U.N. level needs to be mirrored by bottom-up public health actions that bring health and climate co-benefits," public health experts from institutions in Sweden, Germany and South Africa write in an article published in PLoS Medicine on Tuesday, a PLoS press release reports. "[T]here seems to be a lack of coherence in terms of clear public health messages about climate aimed at populations in general," the authors write, according to the press release (6/5). In a related article, also published in PLoS Medicine on Tuesday, Jerome Amir Singh of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), writes, "If we are serious about negotiating a meaningful global treaty to govern climate change, the WHO, health ministers, and ethics considerations need to be at the center of climate change policies and treaty negotiations, not at the periphery" (6/5).