Addressing Climate Change and Its Effects on Human Health: A Call to Action for Medical Schools

Abstract

Human health is increasingly threatened by rapid and widespread changes in the environment and climate, including rising temperatures, air and water pollution, disease vector migration, floods, and droughts. In the United States, many medical schools, the American Medical Association, and the National Academy of Sciences have published calls for physicians and physicians-in-training to develop a basic knowledge of the science of climate change and an awareness of the associated health risks. The authors—all medical students and educators—argue for the expeditious redesign of medical school curricula to teach students to recognize, diagnose, and treat the many health conditions exacerbated by climate change as well as understand public health issues. In this Invited Commentary, the authors briefly review the health impacts of climate change, examine current climate change course offerings and proposals, and describe the rationale for promptly and comprehensively including climate science education in medical school curricula. Efforts in training physicians now will benefit those physicians’ communities whose health will be impacted by a period of remarkable climate change. The bottom line is that the health effects of climate reality cannot be ignored, and people everywhere must adapt as quickly as possible.

The Multi-hub Academic Conference: Global, Inclusive, Culturally Diverse, Creative, Sustainable

“…The global climate crisis is a matter of life and death for a billion people, mostly in developing countries (Chalabi and Foss, 2020;Fong, 2020;Gonzalez-Perez and Neuerburg, 2019;Goshua et al, 2021;Guterres, 2018;Lemery et al, 2021;McMichael, 2017;Parncutt, 2019;Watts et al, 2019). The global situation will almost certainly get steadily worse in coming decades, as global mean surface temperature gradually rises (IPCC, 2018).…”

Adaptive doctors: preparing tomorrow’s doctors for practice in the Anthropocene Epoch

“…Medical students are leading the development of learning resources to fill the current void. 24-27 While peak bodies such as the Medical Deans of Australia and New Zealand (MDANZ) have developed and disseminated updated graduate outcome statements and learning outcomes for medical schools in Australia, these are yet to be formally incorporated into accreditation standards. 28 Therefore the extent to which planetary health is included in medical school curricula is reliant on the motivation of individual educators who have to overcome barriers such as lack of curriculum space, resourcing, and institutional priorities.…”

Climate Change and Mental Health Curricula: Addressing Barriers to Teaching

“…Up to 40% of US medical students graduating between 2009 and 2013 reported they had received inadequate education on climate change, and in response, a third of medical schools were planning to incorporate this topic in their curricula [ 3 ]. According to one estimate, however, most institutions had not yet done so by 2020 [ 10 ]. Similarly, a recent international survey of students from 2817 medical schools located in 112 countries also found that only 15% of schools included climate change and health topics in their curricula [ 11 ].…”

“…There are several curricular efforts, although few full curricula on climate change in health care settings [ 10 , 12 – 17 ]. For example, the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, has included climate health education content in the first-year core curriculum since 2016 [ 12 ].…”