Climate Crisis and Sanitary Collapse: The Environmental Emergency as a Public Health Issue

The climate crisis has emerged as one of the most profound and far-reaching challenges to public health in the twenty-first century. Beyond its environmental dimension, climate change reshapes the conditions that sustain life, intensifies social inequalities, and places unprecedented pressure on health systems worldwide. This article analyzes the climate emergency as a structural public health issue, arguing that the current ecological disruption results from historically constructed models of development, production, and consumption. Through a theoretical and reflective academic essay, the text examines the multiple pathways through which climate change affects health, including extreme weather events, food and water insecurity, the spread of infectious diseases, the aggravation of chronic conditions, and the deterioration of mental health. The analysis highlights that the health impacts of the climate crisis are unevenly distributed, disproportionately affecting socially vulnerable populations, peripheral territories, and countries with weaker institutional capacity. The risk of sanitary collapse is discussed in relation to the growing mismatch between escalating environmental shocks and the limited resilience of underfunded and fragmented health systems. The article concludes by defending the incorporation of the climate agenda as a central axis of public health policy, emphasizing intersectoral action, environmental justice, and the strengthening of health governance as essential strategies for protecting collective health and sustaining life.