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Open research questions in Climate Change and Health Impacts

1,049 gap statements mined from Climate Change and Health Impacts papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 4,518 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • Further research could investigate the mediating role of breastfeeding in shaping temperature-related mortality risks. Further research could examine the association between extreme temperature events and infant mortality in other regions.

    Extreme temperature and infant deaths in rural Spain, 1920–1950: a case-crossover analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • Prior studies have not examined the impact of extreme temperature events on infant mortality in rural Spain. There is a lack of research on the short-term association between temperature and infant death. The study fills a gap by using historical data to investigate this association.

    Extreme temperature and infant deaths in rural Spain, 1920–1950: a case-crossover analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • Peer Review Version Although CFV and CCV are deeply interwoven, the implications of their entanglement remain underexplored in marketing and policy research.

    Uplifting Without Overheating: Navigating the Intersection of Financial and Climate Vulnerabilities · 2026 · DOI

  • AI tools predominantly involved Random Forest and time-series or clustering analysis, mostly assessed through sensitivity, yet the reasoning behind the choice of AI tool or performance metric was largely unreported and the added benefit of using AI compared to traditional statistical techniques was not made explicit as explainable AI techniques were lacking.

    Application of Artificial Intelligence in analysing meteorological data for health research: A rapid review · 2026 · DOI

  • By assessing knowledge, behaviors, perceived barriers, and participant-reported organizational initiatives, this study sought to generate actionable insights to inform educational strategies, organizational policies, and behavior-change interventions, addressing a critical gap in the literature where sustainability initiatives often remain disconnected from frontline clinical realities.

    Environmental Sustainability-Related Knowledge, Behaviors, and Perceived Barriers Among Italian Intensive Care Unit Nurses: A Cross-Sectional Survey · 2026 · DOI

  • The risk of inadvertent output of spurious results if indices are not carefully selected. The challenge of ensuring inter-study comparison of index outputs. The need to balance index refinement with inter-study comparability.

    Critical engagement on the selection and reporting of biometeorological indices · 2026 · DOI

  • Less focus on the climate actions themselves, rather than the health co-benefits and risks. Limited research on adaptation actions, with most research focusing on mitigation actions. Few articles providing actionable policy recommendations to decision-makers.

    What are climate change adaptation and mitigation actions that have health co-benefits and risks? A scoping review in North America · 2026 · DOI

  • Among these, volatile recovery systems are still in development and not yet widely adopted due to high costs, anesthetic losses through piping systems, and disposal challenges after recovery. Recent studies have reported variable recovery efficiencies.

    Environmental and clinical rationale for the use of desflurane: a review of the literature · 2026 · DOI

  • Future anesthesia delivery systems should incorporate advanced technologies to minimize environmental impact. Closed-circuit anesthesia systems with enhanced CO₂ scrubbing and agent recycling capabilities could further reduce consumption beyond current low-flow techniques.

    Sustainable anesthesiology: evidence-based strategies for environmental stewardship in perioperative care · 2026 · DOI

  • Other researchers, however, found that health professionals had insufficient knowledge about the scientific aspects of climate change or more specific aspects of it. This is consistent with studies that have measured knowledge about climate change and health among nursing students, finding high percentages of insufficient knowledge.

    Environmental Competencies in Nurses and Undergraduate Nursing Students Related to the Effects of Climate Change on Older People’s Health · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the literature, which has tended to focus on the impact of extreme climate on ED inflows, rather than the efficiency of EDs. The study highlights the need to incorporate climate considerations into healthcare resource management. The study explores the impact of heat stress on the performance of medical and paramedical personnel in EDs.

    Emergency departments under fire: analysing the impact of heat on waiting time · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of emphasis on occupational heat stress among healthcare workers in existing heat action plans. The need for improved heat protection strategies in German hospitals.

    Bridging the gap between heat action plans and practice: a qualitative study on the implementation of heat protection measures in German hospitals · 2026 · DOI

  • Due to a lack of evidence for an exposure–response relationship between indoor temperature and mortality, studies of this nature have relied on the assumption that a change in indoor temperature due to an intervention will have an equivalent effect on mortality as a corresponding shift along the exposure–response relationship between outdoor temperature and mortality.

    Modeling Exposure–Mortality Relationships for Indoor Heat · 2026 · DOI

  • The relationship between nighttime heat exposure and OHCA is not well understood. Prior studies have focused on the association between heat exposure and OHCA, but not specifically on nighttime heat exposure. There is a need to explore potential heterogeneity in the association between nighttime heat exposure and OHCA according to age, sex, and region.

    Association between nighttime heat exposure and emergency hospitalization for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A time-stratified case-crossover study in Japan · 2026 · DOI

  • Results highlight the need for integrated and multi-sectoral water and health policy frameworks that explicitly account for drought-related risks to potable water quality and availability.

    Public health risks from potable water supply disruptions during drought in high-income countries: A scoping review and policy implications for the United Kingdom · 2026 · DOI

  • Empirical assessment of long-term thermal stress dynamics at the district scale remains limited. There is a need to design locally relevant adaptation strategies to address thermal stress.

    Spatio-temporal dynamics of thermal stress across districts of Uttar Pradesh, India: multi-decadal evidence from combined biometeorological indices · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite research from high-income countries (HICs) such as the United States, Spain, Russia, and Australia, as well as low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, many countries with high rates of VAW, such as Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and regions, such as South Asia and the Middle East that report high rates of violence against women, remain understudied.

    Hot Weather and Violence Against Women: A Global Scoping Review · 2025 · DOI

  • The mechanisms underlying these associations remain complex and not fully understood, but investigating them may offer insights into physiological pathways and inform targeted pain-management strategies. While geographical location clearly influences health outcomes, current literature remains inconclusive regarding which specific regions are more vulnerable to the pain-related effects of climate change.

    Climate Change and Air Pollution-Related Health Effects on Pain · 2025 · DOI

  • This study is based on a non-systematic narrative review of English-language peer-reviewed and selected grey literature.

    The Climate–Migration–Health Nexus: A Multisectoral Framework for Action, with Case Insights from MENA · 2026 · DOI

  • Limited awareness and prioritization of heat-related risks contributing to delays in planning and implementation.

    Bridging the gap between heat action plans and practice: a qualitative study on the implementation of heat protection measures in German hospitals · 2026 · DOI

  • Further index development or alteration may be required where no index meets all the criteria for a given setting, - The substitution of data to a proxy thereof, reweighting of the index, or reweighting an index with all of the included variables may be…

    Critical engagement on the selection and reporting of biometeorological indices · 2026 · DOI

  • This represents a critical gap, particularly since the United Nations’ Early Warning for All initiative aims to ensure effective EWS coverage by 2027. Currently, South Africa still issues heat warnings using absolute air temperature thresholds unrelated to health responses.

    Mobile Heat Early Warning System for Pregnant and Postpartum Women in South Africa: Prospective Observational Evaluation Study · 2026 · DOI

  • The approach for future projects focuses on creating materials and implementing educational interventions to increase the environmental competencies of nurses and nursing students for the care of older people at climate risk, as the results of this study…

    Environmental Competencies in Nurses and Undergraduate Nursing Students Related to the Effects of Climate Change on Older People’s Health · 2026 · DOI

  • Investigating the impact of extreme heat on ED waiting times in other regions, - Examining the effects of heat stress on medical and paramedical personnel, - Developing strategies to mitigate the effects of extreme heat on ED…

    Emergency departments under fire: analysing the impact of heat on waiting time · 2026 · DOI

  • Globally harmonised and disaggregated data distinguishing fatal from non-fatal self-harm remain limited, - The study did not distinguish between fatal and non-fatal self-harm in the analysis, - The study relied on data from the Global Burden of Disease database and World Bank…

    Linking climate change to self-harm: A global study of over 200 countries from 1990 to 2020 · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Climate Change and Health Impacts

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Further research could investigate the mediating role of breastfeeding in shaping temperature-related mortality risks (“Extreme temperature and infant deaths in rural Spain, 1920–1950: a…”, 2026); (2) Peer Review Version Although CFV and CCV are deeply interwoven, the implications of their entanglement remain underexplored in marketing and policy research (“Uplifting Without Overheating: Navigating the Intersection of Financial and…”, 2026); (3) The lack of emphasis on occupational heat stress among healthcare workers in existing heat action plans (“Bridging the gap between heat action plans and practice: a qualitative study on…”, 2026); (4) The relationship between nighttime heat exposure and OHCA is not well understood (“Association between nighttime heat exposure and emergency hospitalization for…”, 2026); (5) Empirical assessment of long-term thermal stress dynamics at the district scale remains limited (“Spatio-temporal dynamics of thermal stress across districts of Uttar Pradesh,…”, 2026). 1,049 gap statements have been mined from Climate Change and Health Impacts papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 4,518 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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