Climate change should be in medical school curriculum as it affects health, report says

Experts say the climate crisis is a “deadly public health emergency” and not just a problem for future generations, Maryam Zakir-Hussain writes

Doctors and health professionals should study climate change in their medical school curriculum, report says (PA )

Climate change should be included in medical schools’ curriculums to help doctors understand how the climate emergency impacts health, a global policy report has recommended.

Doctors and health professionals should study the link “between climate change and health and its health consequences,” the report by Public Policy Projects says.

It argues that the climate crisis is not just an issue for future generations but a “deadly public health emergency that is already causing deaths and suffering around the world.”

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone between 2030 and 2050.

The current climate crisis is “exacerbating existing inequalities in already vulnerable communities and countries” the report adds.

Despite some progress at the COP26 conference in 2021, the report states that the health implications of the climate crisis need to be a bigger part of the climate policy agenda and will only worsen without “swift and meaningful interventions” across the board.

Elaine Mulcahy, director of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, said the “voice of the health professional and the health community is so critically important” in “building up that knowledge and really mobilising the health community to be an advocate for change and to be a voice in driving the change that’s needed is critically important.

Climate change is an issue for now, not the future, experts say (Getty Images)

She added: “Because [climate awareness] hasn’t been embedded in curricula and the education of professionals . . . there is a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge.”

The report says that the coronavirus pandemic has shown how public health is a global priority for every nation in the world and that similar urgency is needed to tackle the health consequences of climate change and to frame it as a health issue.

It calls on national governments to develop effective strategies to review the health impacts of climate change in their countries.

Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown, said: “We as a health community, as policy makers, [need to] come together and give a robust and strong message that we don’t have a liveable future unless we take action now and that climate change is affecting us today: it’s not a problem of the future, it’s not a problem of someone else.”