Applying a One Health lens to understanding the impact of climate and environmental change on healthcare-associated infections.

The pace and trajectory of global and local environmental changes are jeopardizing our health in numerous ways, among them exacerbating the risk of disease emergence and spread in both the community and the healthcare setting via healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Factors such as climate change, widespread land alteration, and biodiversity loss underlie changing human-animal-environment interactions that drive disease vectors, pathogen spillover, and cross-species transmission of zoonoses. Climate change-associated extreme weather events also threaten critical healthcare infrastructure, infection prevention and control (IPC) efforts, and treatment continuity, adding to stress to strained systems and creating new areas of vulnerability.