Climate change curricula in physician associate and physician associate-comparable professional clinical programs

Purpose

Climate change has several known impacts on health, from increasing the spread of communicable disease, exacerbating the impacts of health disparities, disrupting food supplies, and detrimentally impacting mental health.  Both the Lancet and the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education (GCCHE) argue for the inclusion of climate and health competencies in health professional training programs. While these impacts on health are increasingly well documented, little is known about whether, and to what extent, physician associate/physician associate-comparable (PA/PA-comparable) professions around the world are trained on the health impacts of climate change.  With this study, we aimed to assess whether a global sample of international PA/PA-comparable programs incorporated information about climate change and its impacts on health into their curricula.

Methods

A survey developed by PA faculty members and an environmental epidemiologist was distributed to over 350 educational programs over a six-month period. Of these programs, 67 completed the survey, and these responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results

53.7% of programs do not currently incorporate climate change and health topics into their overall education plan. Main barriers include time constraints and coverage of a large amount of material. While most respondents felt only slightly knowledgeable in teaching related content, most felt a pre-made climate change curriculum would help facilitate inclusion of this content in their programs.

Conclusion

While climate change has well-documented and widespread health impacts, these were not addressed in the majority of curricula of a global convenience sample of PA/PA comparable programs.