Connections Between Air Pollution, Climate Change, and Cardiovascular Health

Globally, more people die from cardiovascular disease than any other cause. Climate change, through amplified environmental exposures, will promote and contribute to many noncommunicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease. Air pollution, too, is responsible millions of deaths from cardiovascular disease each year. Although they may appear to be independent, interchangeable relationships bidirectional cause-and-effect arrows between climate change and pollution can eventually lead to poor cardiovascular health. In topical review, we show that climate change and air pollution worsen each other, leading to several ecosystem-mediated effects. We high-light how increases in hot climates as a result of climate change have increased the risk of major air pollution events such as severe wildfires and dust storms. In addition, we show how altered atmospheric chemistry and changing patterns of weather conditions can promote the formation and accumulation of air pollutants: a phenomenon known as the climate penalty. We demonstrate these amplified envi-ronmental exposures and their associations to adverse cardiovascular