Gaceta sanitaria
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Review
[Climatic change and public health: scenarios after the coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol].
According to the reports of the intergovernmental panel for climatic change (IPCC) human beings of the present and near future are going to experiment, in fact we are already experimenting, important changes in the world climate. Conscious of the magnitude of the problem, international organizations have taken a series of initiatives headed to stop the climatic change and to reduce its impact. This willingness has been shaped into the agreements established in the Kyoto protocol, where countries commit to reduce greenhouse-effect gas emissions. ⋯ Even if all the countries in the world committed to the Kyoto Protocol, some consequences of the climatic change will be inevitable; among them some will have a negative impact on health. It would be necessary to adapt a key response strategy to minimize the impacts of climatic change and to reduce, at minimum cost, its adverse effects on health. From the Public Health position, a relevant role can and must be played concerning the understanding of the risks for health of such climatic changes, the design of surveillance systems to evaluate possible impacts, and the establishment of systems to prevent or reduce damages as well as the identification and development of investigation needs.
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To assess level of fulfillment and utility of the hospital discharge register (HDR) as a complementary source of information for estimating the number of deaths at 30 days due to motor vehicle crashes in Spain. ⋯ This study showed that the HDR is an information source that complements police statistics and is useful to estimate the number of deaths and non-fatal injuries due to motor vehicle crashes in Spain.