Navigating global health futures under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

Green C 1 , Andrijevic M 2 , Hess JJ 3 , Pachauri S 2 , Sellers S 4 , van Ruijven B 2 Show all authors , Ebi KL 3 , Ahamad F 5 , Åström C 6 , Aunan K 7 , Bi P 8 , Biesbroek R 9 , Borghi J 10 , Bowen K 11 , Caminade C 12 , Carter TR 13 , Galvao LAC 14 , Cissé G 15 , Dasgupta S 16 , de Sherbinin A 17 , Dimitrova A 18 , Fann N 19 , Frieler K 20 , Fuglestvedt J 7 , Ghosh S 21 , Gordon-Strachan G 22 , Guo Y 23 , Guttikunda S 24 , Hilly J 25 , Hoffmann R 26 , Kc S 27 , Kiesewetter G 26 , Kim H 28 , Kone B 29 , Lee W 30 , Lipsanen A 13 , Lloyd SJ 31 , Lotze-Campen H 32 , Lwasa S 33 , McGregor G 34 , McLeman R 35 , Morse A 36 , Murray KA 37 , Ogden NH 38 , Palmeiro-Silva Y 39 , Patwardhan A 40 , Pineo H 41 , Prahhakaran P 42 , Riahi K 2 , Ryan SJ 43 , Schweizer V 44 , Semenza JC 6 , Thiam S 45 , Totin E 46 , Valdivia RO 47 , van Vuuren D 48

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change Venice, Italy. Electronic address: carolemg@uw.edu
  • 2 Energy, Climate, and Environment Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria
  • 3 Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; Department of Global Health, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
  • 4 Department of Global Health, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
  • 5 Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, Sunway University, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia
  • 6 Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
  • 7 CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway
  • 8 School of Public Health, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  • 9 Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands
  • 10 Health, Ageing and Health Systems Research Group, Population and Just Societies Program, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria; Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
  • 11 Melbourne Climate Futures, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  • 12 Earth System Physics, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy
  • 13 Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), Helsinki, Finland
  • 14 Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Center for International Relations (CRIS), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA
  • 15 Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire (CSRS), Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  • 16 Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change Venice, Italy; Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
  • 17 Center for Integrated Earth System Information, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA
  • 18 Institute of Public Health, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany
  • 19 Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; WHO Collaborating Centre for Climate Change and Health Impact Assessment, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
  • 20 Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany; Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
  • 21 Department of Biostatistics, St John's Medical College, Bengaluru, India
  • 22 Tropical Metabolism Research Unit, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica
  • 23 Climate, Air Quality Research Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  • 24 Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India
  • 25 School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia
  • 26 IIASA, Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, Austrian Academy of Sciences [OeAW], University of Vienna), Laxenburg, Austria
  • 27 IIASA, Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, Austrian Academy of Sciences [OeAW], University of Vienna), Laxenburg, Austria; Asian Demographic Research Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
  • 28 Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
  • 29 Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire (CSRS), Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; University Peleforo Gon Coulibaly, Korhogo, Côte d'Ivoire
  • 30 School of Biomedical Convergence Engineering, College of Information and Biomedical Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
  • 31 Independent Researcher, Madrid, Spain
  • 32 Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany
  • 33 International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, Netherlands
  • 34 Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, UK
  • 35 Department of Geography & Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada
  • 36 School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
  • 37 Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health, MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Fajara, The Gambia
  • 38 Modelling Hub Division, Science and Policy Integration Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Groupe de Recherche en Épidémiologie des Zoonoses et Santé Publique, Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, Université de Montréal, Saint-Hyacinthe, QC, Canada; Centre de Recherche en Santé Publique, Université de Montréal, Saint-Hyacinthe, QC, Canada
  • 39 Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
  • 40 School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
  • 41 Department of Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, University College London, London, UK
  • 42 Centre for Health Analytics Research and Trends, Trivedi School of Biosciences, Ashoka University, Sonipat, India
  • 43 Department of Geography and Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
  • 44 Waterloo Climate Intervention Strategies Lab, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada; School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada; Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, ON, Canada
  • 45 African Population and Health Research Center, West Africa Regional Office, Dakar, Senegal
  • 46 Ecole de Sociologie Rurale et de Vulgarisation Agricole, Université Nationale d'Agriculture, Porto-Novo, Benin
  • 47 Department of Applied Economics, College of Agricultural Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
  • 48 Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands; PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, Netherlands
Lancet Planet Health, 2026 Sep;10(9):101514.
PMID: 42833239 DOI: 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101514

Abstract

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) provide valuable insights to understand how future socioeconomic changes could alter the magnitude and pattern of climate-related risks across sectors, which might facilitate or hinder adaptation and mitigation responses. Many sectors have created SSP narrative extensions to specify insights for their domains. In this Viewpoint, we created health narrative extensions for the SSPs, considering socioeconomic and demographic drivers and population health and health-system drivers. The projected health-relevant trajectories diverge substantially over the course of the 21st century. The SSP3 and SSP4 narratives detail changes that could contribute considerable risks to health, whereas the SSP1 and SSP5 narratives highlight the role of effective governance and adequate resourcing in reducing climate-sensitive population health outcomes and health-system drivers. Given that climate forcing is considered exogenous to these narrative extensions, SSP5's favourable health driver paths do not account for the potential adverse impacts of this high-emissions pathway. The narratives elaborate population health drivers that can improve the policy relevance of population health and health-system risk projections associated with climate change across a range of possible pathways, and link these drivers with relevant cross-sectoral issues (eg, water and energy). Further research is required to quantify key drivers of population health and health-system risks at global to local scales.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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