Climate Change, Health and Informatics: a Narrative Review

Summary

Objectives: Human health is influenced by genetic, socioeconomic, environmental, and behavioral factors. Climate change represents one of the greatest threats to global public health in the 21st century, impacting both communicable and non-communicable diseases, and challenging the resilience of healthcare systems. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to health play a dual role: while they contribute to climate change, they also offer essential tools to address it through public health and healthcare management strategies. To explore the intersections between climate change, human health, and informatics by analyzing how digital technologies—particularly AI and ICTs—can contribute to mitigating the health impacts of climate change, promoting sustainable behaviors, and strengthening the adaptive capacity of healthcare systems, while also addressing the sustainability challenges these technologies entail.

Methods: A narrative review was conducted to explore how digital transformation interacts with climate change and its subsequent effects on human health. A comprehensive search of the Scopus and PubMed databases yielded 1,130 articles from 2015 to 2025. After screening for relevance, 24 key studies were selected, providing insights into distinct phases of research evolution in this field. Seven papers were then added manually as they were considered relevant.

Results: Digital transformation (ICTs, AI) in health has driven sustainable innovations, exemplified by projects such as PULSE and BRAINTEASER, which leverage technology to prevent health risks, optimize interventions, and manage urban resources. The development of smart and eco-cities highlights the transformative potential of digital technologies to create sustainable urban environments, provided they are supported by policies promoting renewable energy, circular economies, and emissions reductions. However, digital transformation entails significant sustainability challenges, including energy consumption and emissions, water usage, electronic waste and resource depletion. The need to strike a balance between the potential of ICTs and AI to improve public health and their environmental impact is strongly emphasized throughout the article. Although well-established strategies exist to mitigate these effects—such as energy efficiency, circular economy models, the use of clean energy, remote work, and telemedicine—there is still a lack of standardized protocols and global policies to enable their effective implementation.

Conclusion: ICTs, and particularly AI, play an ambivalent role in the face of health and climate change: they can be part of the problem or part of the solution. To maximize their positive impact and reduce their ecological footprint, it is urgent to establish responsible policies, sustainable models of technological development, and standardized procedures to guide their application in the fields of health and the environment.