Climate change has a strong impact on people’s health. A network of European universities has decided to equip ten thousand new doctors with the necessary knowledge and skills regarding the consequences that climate change leaves on people’s health
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Train doctors on the relationship between climate change and health
Does climate change have a negative impact on health? At the end of a summer that was confirmed as the hottest ever, in Europe it was decided to intervene in a targeted way.
Filling the gaps in medical education
Twenty-five European universities came together online and decided to specifically train 10 thousand medical students.
The goal is equip future doctors with the necessary knowledge and skills regarding the consequences that climate change leaves on people’s health; with appropriate training it will be easier to provide targeted healthcare.
Leading medical schools in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom have founded the European Network on Climate & Health Education (FILL).
The European network will also include teaching on climate change and its effects on health in the curricula. The goal is to help future doctors recognize, prevent and treat ailments caused, for example, by excessive heat, sudden changes in temperature, and increasingly unrecognizable seasons.
This new scenario has important consequences for public health and a overload of health systemsalready in trouble.
Which are the 25 universities that have joined the network?
Below we list the first 25 universities that joined ENCHE:
- KU Leuven, Faculty of Medicine (Belgio)
- Lancaster University / Lancaster Medical School (UK)
- Faculty of Medicine, Lund University (Svezia)
- Medical University of Warsaw (Poland)
- Nova Medical School (Portogallo)
- Trinity College Dublin, School of Medicine (Irlanda)
- University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 – Faculty of Medicine Lyon Est (Francia)
- University College London Medical School (UK)
- University of Aberdeen, School of Medicine and Dentistry (UK)
- University of Augsburg (Germania)
- University of Barcelona, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (Spain)
- University of Buckingham Medical School (UK)
- University of Glasgow School of Medicine (UK)
- University of Lisbon, School of Medicine (Portogallo)
- University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Medicine (Slovenia)
- University of Lucerne, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine (Svizzera)
- University of Milan, Faculty of Medicine (Italy)
- University of Navarra, School of Medicine (Spain)
- University of Nottingham, School of Medicine (UK)
- University of Oxford, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (UK)
- University of Paris Cité, Faculty of Health (Francia)
- University of Pavia, Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Therapy (Italy)
- University of Sheffield, School of Medicine and Population Health (UK)
- University of Turin, Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences MedInTo (Italy)
- University of Warwick, Medical School (UK)
How does climate change affect health?
Extreme temperatures and air pollution aggravate the spread of infectious and chronic diseasesof the cancerfrom the cardiovascular diseasesof those respiratory and the conditions of mental health.
But if we talk about pollution, too the healthcare system is not without fault: in fact, generates approximately 5% of greenhouse gas emissions.
The WHO (World Health Organization) studies are alarming. 99% of people breathe polluted air and every year this causes the death of 7 million people.
Without intervening decisively, the WHO predicts that Deaths linked to excessive heat could triple between now and 2050. Vulnerable categories – children, elderly people, marginalized communities, people suffering from other health problems – are obviously the most affected by the effects of climate change.
Climate change will impact everyone’s health, but not in the same way. This makes it necessary to create regional networks to help healthcare workers to respond to crises according to the needs of different communities.
A European public-private network
Medical training rarely includes teaching on the link between climate and health. The ENCHE Network – chaired byUniversity of Glasgow (Scotland) – aims to fill this gap through targeted programs to address climate-related health threats.
The goal of the Network is train at least 10 thousand students in three years with the support of health organizations such as AstraZeneca, Bupa, GSK, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Roche, Sanofi and the WHO.
These organizations are part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative Health Systems Task Forcea public-private collaboration between global healthcare and pharmaceutical companies and businesses to accelerate the decarbonization of healthcare systems.
«The health impacts of climate change are not hypothetical threats for the future, they are here, now. WHO is supporting countries to build climate-resilient and environmentally friendly health systemswhich includes providing healthcare workers with the skills needed to address this major public health challenge», he declared Tedros Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO.
