ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by exploring how animal health is defined. Climate change and health programs must consider the interplay between deficits and threats that deviate animals away from desired health states with assets provided by the determinants of health that promote and preserve health. This integrated view shapes a continuum of care to combat the effects of climate change on animal health. The continuum of care parallels the continuum of health that ranges from optimal health to premature, excessive, or inhumane deaths. This view provides a conceptual foundation of animal health care action that stresses not only responses to emerging or changed threats but also protecting and promoting the social, individual, and environmental capitals and capacities that keep animals and us well. Five major themes of negative health impacts from climate change are briefly introduced; those being infectious diseases, heat stress, extreme weather, contaminants, and impacts on the determinants of health. The role of healthy animals as determinants of human community climate change resilience is explored by highlighting how animals contribute to economic, social, and natural capitals people need to cope with change and shocks. The chapter ends by summarizing the challenges and needs to identify climate vulnerable species and places to help prioritize actions and target drivers of specific and general resilience and adaptability.
