Climate Change and Epidemiology: How Will Environmental Stresses and the Climate Affect Population Health?

Climate change is no longer a distant, incremental threat, but a present-day driver of environmental stresses that are reshaping cardiovascular risk at a population scale.The epidemiologic framing is straightforward and urgent, given that climate change alters the frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution of exposures-extreme weather, wildfire smoke, other air pollutants-while also interacting with social vulnerability, infrastructure, and underlying disease.For cardiovascular health, these shifts matter because many climate-amplified exposures influence blood pressure regulation, endothelial function, oxidative stress, arrhythmias, and cardiometabolic pathways 1 .The public health implications are equally direct: cardiovascular outcomes are common, climate-related exposures are widespread, and the resulting attributable burden can be substantial even when relative risks appear modest.While numerous climate-linked exposures affect the cardiovascular system, this commentary selected three domains-temperature extremes, air pollution and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and drought-to illustrate how climate change is altering the "exposure landscape" for cardiovascular disease (CVD).We also discuss plausible mechanisms, emerging epidemiologic needs, and actionable strategies for mitigation and adaptation, including climate-informed education of the health care workforce and implementation science strategies.Implementation science can aid the systematic integration of climate-informed approaches into health systems workflows, institutional policies, and interprofessional team structures at a global scale.