The Effects of Climate Change on Seniors

From extreme heat and cold to the increasing frequency of natural disasters, climate change affects humans physically and emotionally. It’s especially detrimental to vulnerable groups of people. In fact, the effects of climate change on seniors can be devastating.

Research is showing us that older adults are more susceptible to environmental conditions that are worsening because of global climate change. These include extended periods of extreme heat, drought, more severe storms, wildfires, floods, and more. Older adults are significantly less likely to survive natural disasters and extreme weather events, too. For example, 71% of the people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina were over age 60, according to government statistics.

And even if older adults do survive such events, research shows they are likely to suffer long-term mental effects that can stem from the disaster itself as well as from being uprooted from their communities and losing their homes.

Some serious effects of climate change on seniors

Extreme heat

As we age, we become more susceptible to heat illnesses because our bodies become harder to cool. This can exacerbate preexisting conditions such as diabetes or heart disease and increase the chances of a negative reaction to excessive heat. It can also cause dehydration, which can lead to a host of health issues, including heat stroke.

Excessive heat can also affect mental health, leading to irritability, changes in mood, and depression. It can impact sleep, which also plays a role in mental wellness. To avoid the heat, some older adults tend to isolate themselves indoors, which can increase feelings of isolation and depression.

Related: Don’t Get Burned by the Summer Heat

Vector-borne and water-borne diseases

Due to warmer temperatures, disease-carrying ticks and mosquitoes have expanded their range, grown in number due to longer breeding seasons, and are active for longer periods. Older adults with compromised immune systems are at higher risk of contracting diseases such as West Nile Virus, spread by mosquitoes, and Lyme disease, spread by ticks, according to the EPA . For example, “Adults aged 55-69 have the highest number of confirmed and probable cases of Lyme disease in the United States,” the EPA said.

Climate change may also pose risks to older adults of contracting water-borne diseases from either drinking contaminated water or exposure to recreational water or floodwaters from heavy rainfall or storms.

Air pollution

Climate change can reduce air quality by increasing pollutants in the air and extending the length and severity of pollen seasons in the U.S. These air pollutants range from increased pollen levels, particulate matter released by wildfires, and dust from droughts, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Air pollution can worsen conditions like asthma and COPD and increase the risk of heart attacks in older adults. This is especially true for those who are diabetic or obese.

Does air pollution also affect the mental health of seniors? Believe it or not, yes. Researchers have shown a definitive link between air pollution and serious mental health conditions. A study at the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry , published in the British Journal of Psychology, concluded that air pollution may contribute to depression, anxiety, and even neurocognitive issues like dementia.

Extreme weather events

Extreme weather events such as floods, severe storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires leave behind paths of destruction. They often cause injuries and death to both humans and animals, and they also destroy homes, businesses, and personal property. It can take months or even years for the people who are affected to rebuild their lives if they survive.

And older adults are less likely to survive such events. According to a study on Hurricane Katrina published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) , the high mortality rates of older adults can be attributed to several factors. These included a “lack of evacuation facilities, infirmities that made evacuation difficult if not impossible, and high levels of poverty and isolation, which increased their vulnerability in the face of social failure of emergency response,” said the study.

Even for seniors who sought shelters, resources were not in place to take care of them adequately. The study recounted the story of one man who took five hours driving his family, including his 73-year-old mother, to an emergency shelter, where he was turned away because they weren’t yet equipped to care for her heart disease and Parkinson’s. The family was forced to return home, and when flood waters rose, they became trapped on their home’s roof, and the mother fell in the water. She was rescued by a family member but died shortly afterward.

For older adults who survive extreme weather events, the road back to normalcy can be a long one. These events can cause significant trauma and post-traumatic stress symptoms. “The more severe and intense your exposure to traumatic experiences during a disaster, the more likely you will have severe mental health symptoms. If you watch someone die or your house floods, you tend to have more intense effects,” said Carl F. Weems , a psychologist, researcher, and associate professor at the University of New York.

Older adults face other challenges as well, such as figuring out how to start over later in life, which can also impact mental health. In an article in the San Francisco Public Press , Dr. Robin Cooper said it’s not easy for older adults to rebuild after natural disasters like the wildfire that occurred in Paradise, California, a community with a lot of retirees.

Cooper, an associate clinical professor at the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, was quoted: “These are people who retired, they’re on fixed incomes, who lost everything. So, when you lose your home, and you don’t have a lot of economic resources for rebuilding, you really have secondary emotional impacts. So where do you live? The loss of your social support – the greater level of poverty that you live out the rest of your life – interferes with your ability to make choices. And that has huge emotional impacts with depression, post-traumatic stress, and vulnerability.”

Cooper also said there are strategies to prepare communities to better care for older adults during natural disasters. She recommends moving to public health models that promote community connectivity, such as buddy systems where neighbors check on each other and are ready to assist in times of need and during emergencies.

“It means tightening up our neighbor-to-neighbor relationships, particularly for the elderly. That’s incredibly important, because they can be isolated, left alone, not able to care for themselves. If we have a public health model, we can have partnerships,” she said.

To guard against some of the worst effects of climate change on seniors, experts recommend that families have an emergency plan for how to handle a natural disaster. This plan should include how to communicate with family members in the event of an emergency, a central location for everyone to meet, and a bag with essential supplies such as flashlights, bottled water and snacks. Families should be sure to consider how to ensure the adults in their families are going to be cared for in these plans.

While the effects of climate change on seniors can be devastating, older adults won’t face the years of climate change harm that youth will. But at whatever age, we can all work to mitigate the harms now and into the future.

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