Regional Impacts of Future Climate Change on Health and Labor in Brazil

Global climate and environmental change have aggravated in the last decades. In- creased health stress is one of the most alarming consequences of these changes. Although many studies have tried to estimate the direct and indirect consequences of a warmer and dryer environment for the economy, both at a global and local scale, a smaller number of studies have addressed the mid and long term health implications of these changes at a regional level. Building on their previous work, this study takes a multi-stage approach to estimate the climate-related consequences on cardiovascular/respiratory and infectious/vector-borne diseases, morbidity and mortality, and labor supply in Brazil. Combining Spatial Bayes Smoothing, Spatial Econometrics, Global Burden of Disease data, and a Regional Computable General Equilibrium model, this study estimates the future development of climate-sensitive health disorders, their implications for morbidity and mortality, and the consequences for labor sup- ply and productivity for the Brazilian states and regions from 2010 to 2040. Our results suggest that partial effects of climate change on health and labor supply is higher than the total impact (from general equilibrium estimates). Increased morbidity and mortality and labor loss would be higher for vector-borne and infectious than for non-communicable diseases, and mostly concentrated in less developed regions of the country.