The Dual Threat: Synergistic Health Impacts of Climate Change and Conflict

A new climate–conflict analysis documents how overlapping environmental shocks and armed instability combine to create compounded threats to health.

The report maps linked pathways including infrastructure damage, disrupted food supplies, and increased infectious-disease transmission. These findings demand integrated health strategy and coordinated operational planning to sustain essential services during compound crises.

Observed data show that undernutrition, infectious outbreaks, maternal–child risks, and care disruption are amplified when climate extremes and conflict co-occur. Damaged facilities, supply-chain interruption, and displacement drive delays in care, vaccine-program disruption, and rising malnutrition—shifting clinical priorities toward enhanced triage, strengthened preventive services, and proactive supply planning.

Vulnerable groups include children, pregnant women, older adults, people with chronic disease, and displaced populations, who bear disproportionate impacts. Children face higher mortality from undernutrition and infectious disease; pregnant women experience interrupted antenatal care and elevated maternal risk; older adults are especially heat-vulnerable and face medication discontinuity; chronic-disease patients risk treatment interruption and decompensation; and displaced people lose access to basic services while encountering crowded infectious exposures. Overall, vulnerability reflects both exposure and preexisting fragility of health services.

Conflicts routinely reallocate resources and blunt climate-mitigation and adaptation efforts, producing immediate health harms. Accordingly, strengthening health-system resilience is essential to protect services and maintain funding continuity during compound events. Policy must prioritize continuity of primary care, nutrition programs, vaccination, and cold-chain maintenance when climate extremes and conflict intersect.