We have highlighted on HIFA the importance of awareness of the global population about the potential health impacts of climate change, and the responsibility of health professionals to be informed and to inform. Below are relevant extracts from a letter in The Lancet Planetary Health.
CITATION: CORRESPONDENCE| VOLUME 8, ISSUE 4, E216, APRIL 2024
Climate change education for health-care professionals: crucial gaps in low-income and middle-income countries
Hoimonty Mazumder & M Mahbub Hossain
Open Access Published:April, 2024 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00010-X
Climate change poses a substantial threat to human health, leading to millions of additional deaths and illnesses due to increasingly striking extreme weather events. The populations of low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) are particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, owing to scarce resources, inadequate planning, and insufficient investment in health care, the environment, and related sectors. Health professionals, as key frontline players focusing on effective mitigation and adaptation strategies, play a pivotal role in responding to climate-driven emergent health hazards....
Despite the growing recognition of the health implications of climate change, a considerable gap exists in the education and training of health professionals in LMICs to effectively address climate-related heath crises. This limitation hinders the capacity of health professionals to deliver effective, evidence-based treatment strategies and preventive measures and develop community awareness....
Intersectoral policies should be strengthened, emphasising how health-care providers can contribute to national climate action plans, which would inform the ecoliteracy and competency gaps to be addressed among future health-care leaders in their respective contexts. Local and global collaborations to exchange knowledge and build partnerships for climate education and action might help decolonise planetary health in LMICs, thereby enabling health-care professionals to actualise their roles in protecting population health and alleviating climate-related health disparities.
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
