The Health-Climate-Security Triad

Jan 31, 2025 | J. Stephen Morrison and Katherine E. Bliss
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Imperiled health is the human face of climate change. Indeed, the climate crisis is increasingly recognized to be a health crisis. It is a crisis marked by higher mortality, costly illnesses, and increased risks of new biological pathogens that together threaten U.S. national security interests.

The most visible climate-related factors endangering health are dangerous forms of heat, along with wildfires and smoke, as well as ferocious storms and floods. It is the exceptionally fluid, dynamic interaction among these extreme events when mixed with changing land use patterns and rising sea levels, that wreaks havoc upon health systems, supply chains, and the delivery of health care in the United States and around the world. Deaths, illnesses, and mass displacement rise in their wake.