By: Eric Czerwonka, Follow South Jersey Community Journalist
It’s no secret that climate change is becoming more of an issue with each passing year.
The talk of it grows, and will only continue to grow, not many know of the actual impacts that climate change is bringing to our health.
“The World Health Organization has stated that climate change is the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century,” said Dr. Elizabeth Cerceo, MD, at Cooper Medical School.
Cerceo started back in 2018, and wanted to do something for the environment, and at first was struggling to see a pathway as a physician. Eventually, she started teaching herself the content.
“At the time, there really wasn’t too much out there,” said Dr. Cerceo. “So it was really a journey of self-exploration.”
Her journey, however, is not just for medical professionals, it’s for everyone.
“Just as a citizen of this planet, we should all know what’s happening with the world around us,” said Cerceo. “All of our existence is intimately interconnected with one another and also with our natural surroundings.”
So, how is climate change affecting us?
Rising Temperatures and Unpredictable Weather
Rising temperatures, for example, continue to lead to more frequent and severe heat waves. Continuous exposure to extreme heat can cause a multitude of problems. Some of those include heat exhaustion, dehydration, and even heatstroke.
“There are areas even now through desertification that are inseparable and can’t be used for agriculture anymore,” said Cerceo. “It’s really unfortunate, but it’s also in and of itself a health casualty.”
Because of the rising temperatures, along with long droughts, climate migration is becoming a concern as well. Environmental changes can make farmland unusable, and force families to move to somewhere more stable.
“When we think about areas in Central America that have been impacted by droughts, by changing the environment, that can also drive climate migration,” said Cerceo.
But that’s still not even all.
“Heat can lead to birth defects,” said Cerceo. “Depending on when in the gestational cycle it happens.”
And it’s not just heat either, it’s the sudden shift of hot to cold, something that Northeasterners experience too much, bouncing back and forth between the two, especially this year with the extreme cold.
“We have these relatively cold winters, and then we go into hot summers,” said Cerceo. “So our bodies aren’t acclimated to the change in temperature.”
The Northeast has the highest mortality rate from extreme heat.
Severe and stronger weather events are becoming more common, too. Stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfall, and more flooding can all displace families and damage buildings such as hospitals.
Severe precipitation can also damage crops, worsen food insecurity, and impact communities that are “first and worst.”
Flooding can contaminate drinking water, spreading waterborne illnesses, and creating mold exposure in homes.
However, one aspect that gets glossed over is the mental side.
The Mental Toll
According to a 2025 study done by MPDI, they detected studies of how mental health and climate change were connected. Causing depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), solastalgia (which is when people feel emotional distress when their home environment is changing), and eco-anxiety.
“It’s a normal response to seeing change and to being sad at losing what we have right now and seeing that change happen before our eyes,” said Cerceo.
In the same study, they stated that PTSD can be caused by wildfires, and air pollution was linked to causing anxiety, and even sleep disorders. Extreme heat was even connected to an increase in suicide.
“It’s a transgenerational epidemic, we already have a mental health epidemic,” said Cerceo. “But, existential concerns like this can supplant a lot of other issues.”
Cerceo stated that seven out of ten young people were planning to not have children solely due to climate change.
Engineering the Solution
Leiriane Rios, an environmental engineer, who studied at the University of Brasilia, started to discover through research of how close the two were.
“I used to think of climate change as something distant or long-term,” said Rios. “I realized its impacts are already happening and deeply personal.”
For Rios, the future of environmental engineering is about immediate actions.
“In the next five years, environmental engineers will need to focus on three main points,” said Rios. “Climate resilient water and sanitation systems, reducing environmental inequality, and protecting ecosystems as part of public health.”
Rios, who did a project in a low-income-area called Ceilândia, in the Federal District of Brazil, one of the largest and most vulnerable informal settlements in Latin America.
“They still lack access to safe water sanitation waste management,” said Rios. “Environmental engineering must work not only for technical solutions, but also for inclusive planning.”
The climate crisis isn’t unfolding somewhere else or some other time. It’s here, and it’s reshaping what it means to protect public health.
“Climate change isn’t only an environmental issue,” said Rios. “It is one of the greatest public health challenges of our generation.”
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