Climate Risk and Health Expenditure: Implications for Governments, Corporations, and Households

The intensification of climate risks—ranging from extreme weather events to deteriorating air quality—has strengthened the critical nexus between environmental change and public health. This nexus imposes a severe economic burden across society. For governments, it strains fiscal sustainability by increasing public healthcare spending and disaster relief budgets. For corporations, climate-related health effects raise operational costs through higher insurance premiums and productivity losses linked to workforce illness. At the individual level, exposure to environmental hazards increases out-of-pocket medical expenses and threatens household welfare. Despite growing awareness, the mechanisms through which climate risks redistribute financial burdens across these three sectors remain fragmented. This Research Topic aims to bridge this gap by examining how a warming planet shapes health expenditure and its distribution.The primary objective of this Research Topic is to synthesize high-quality empirical and theoretical research that quantifies how climate risk affects health expenditure across the public, private, and household sectors. We aim to assess heterogeneous effects of both physical risks (e.g., extreme weather) and transition risks (e.g., policy changes) on healthcare financing. Specifically, we seek contributions that identify effective adaptation strategies, evaluate how insurance and fiscal policies can mitigate health-related costs, and propose frameworks for building climate-resilient health systems. Ultimately, this collection aims to provide policymakers and business leaders with evidence-based insights to improve resource allocation and protect human capital in an era of climate uncertainty.This Research Topic welcomes rigorous empirical and theoretical contributions that examine the fiscal and financial implications of climate risk across three distinct yet interconnected domains:• Public sector: government fiscal capacity and healthcare subsidies• Corporate sector: employee health costs, ESG investments, and insurance liabilities• Household sector: catastrophic health expenditures and welfare effectsWe encourage submissions that move beyond correlation and identify causal mechanisms. Themes of interest include, but are not limited to:• Physical risks (e.g., heatwaves, pollution) versus transition risks (e.g., carbon taxes) and their effects on health expenditure• The role of insurance markets and fiscal policies in reducing health-related costs• Cross-country comparative analyses of climate-resilient healthcare financing Topic editors: Kai-Hua Wang, Oana Lobont Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77778/climate-risk-and-health-expenditure-implications-for-governments-corporations-and-households