Nursing Climate Resources for Health Education (N-CRHE): Advancing education and empowering nurses for action

Negative health outcomes from climate exposures are increasing, significantly impacting human health and wellbeing. Nurses across practice settings need the knowledge and skills to address this health equity issue to ensure that future nurses are prepared to address climate-related health harms.

Barriers to climate-health curricular integration include a lack of faculty expertise in addition to a lack of available educational resources. The Global Nurses Working Group (GNWG), an international group of nurses based out of the Global Consortium for Climate and Health Education (GCCHE) at Columbia University have developed two novel approaches to address these barriers and therefore increase the ability of the nursing workforce to ameliorate the negative health harms of climate change across practice settings.

Nursing Climate Resources For Health Education, an evidence-based, peer-reviewed, repository of climate change and planetary health-related resources was created to address the gap in faculty knowledge of climate change and health. Developed by nursing faculty and students, resources include climate-specific learning objectives, case studies, and slide decks that can be integrated into existing courses. Population-focused categories were created to guide learning material development across the prelicensure, masters, and doctoral programs. Complementing the N-CRHE, Nursing on the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis: Education for Action, a virtual, free, 10-week course consisting of ten 60-minute presentations, was delivered by global climate change nurse experts. Each presentation focused on a climate-related health impact; participants were provided relevant materials and had the opportunity for engagement during the presentations. The program remains available for asynchronous viewing and continuing education credits are available. Certificates of participation were provided. Currently, there have been 2397 registrants, representing 133 countries across 6 continents.

Innovative and novel approaches to climate and health education are urgently needed to strengthen the vast nursing workforce to address the climate-related health hazards.