Climate Change and Environmental Health Must Be Integrated Into Medical Education

Abstract

To the Editor: We were delighted to read the articles by Goshua and colleagues 1 and Philipsborn and colleagues 2 calling for the inclusion of climate science curricula in undergraduate and graduate medical education and seeing this as critical to broader efforts to reexamine environmental health curricula in medical education. While medical schools now have greater emphasis on social determinants of health, including environmental health, this often focuses on individual risk assessment and treatment. Additionally, as Goshua and colleagues noted, climate health curricula are often relegated to elective instruction. At the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, we currently require a climate change lecture for medical students and offer a climate change elective. However, we recognize that this is insufficient to fully highlight intrinsic connections between the environment, climate change, and health. We are working to integrate environmental health across the curriculum, similar to the approach described by Wellbery and colleagues, 3 to more readily foster discussions about the impact of environmental changes on disease epidemiology and address the role of built and natural environmental factors in patient care. Furthermore, as Goshua and colleagues and Philipsborn and colleagues noted, climate change disproportionately impacts marginalized communities. As medical schools commit to training students to recognize injustice and promote health equity, we maintain that these goals cannot be met without greater emphasis on environmental health—including climate science—in the curriculum. Physicians must recognize the relationship between structural determinants of environmental health, the built and natural environments, and health disparities. As a growing body of scientific evidence points to climate change as a serious risk to human health, we support expanding climate science curricula while reenvisioning environmental health in medical education. Curricular experiences must shift from simply recognizing the environment as a determinant of health toward routinely incorporating environmental health and climate change into teaching. Such a change will elevate environmental health and communicate climate change’s relevance to health and thereby promote health equity.

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