Family medicine residents' knowledge of, attitudes toward, and clinical practices related to environmental health: Multi-program survey

To assess family medicine residents' knowledge of, attitudes toward, and clinical practices related to environmental health (EH).

Two-part study with questionnaire construction using a modified Delphi method, and a Web-based questionnaire administered to family medicine residents between November 2015 and January 2016.

All Canadian family medicine programs (for questionnaire construction) and 4 Ontario family medicine training programs (for questionnaire administration).

First- to third-year family medicine residents (for questionnaire administration).

Responses to 93 survey items that measured family medicine residents' knowledge of, attitudes toward, and clinical practices related to EH.

For the final administered questionnaire, 203 of 887 (22.9%) family medicine residents responded. Although 92.0% of respondents somewhat or strongly believed that taking an environmental exposure history was important, only 18.1% of them had specific training in taking environmental exposure history, and 48.4% believed that taking an exposure history takes up too much time in office practice. While 82.9% of residents correctly identified recreational water use as a cause of gastroenteritis, only 60.2% correctly identified radon as a cause of lung cancer and 37.6% knew that elevated ground-level ozone is associated with asthma. Only 10.8% believed their supervisors had a good understanding of environmental exposures. Residents who believed their supervisors understood environmental exposures were more likely to take exposure histories for patients with uncontrolled asthma (P < .05), and those who discussed EH exposure with supervisors frequently, or thought environmental exposure histories were very important, were more likely to provide patients with EH education materials (P < .01).

Although family medicine residents are aware of the importance of assessing patients' environmental exposures, they lack training and mentorship in EH. As a health determinant of critical importance, EH should be a high priority for inclusion in postgraduate family medicine education.