An Integrable and Interactive Session for Developing Action-Oriented Foundational Climate Change and Health...

Climate change is the greatest threat to global health, yet there are few foundational climate resources available for integration into medical school curricula. We describe an interactive session for equipping medical students with practical and empowering foundational climate-health competencies.

We developed a 2-hour interactive lecture+ preceded by 30 minutes of required prep work. Knowledge was assessed using two-question quizzes. A postsession survey evaluated session effectiveness and self-assessed attitudes and preparedness.

A total of 375 students participated; 164 completed all assessment and evaluation measures. The average knowledge quiz score after required prep was 80%. Of all students, 82% reported that more than half of the session's climate change mitigative strategies were new to them. Ratings of preparedness for five tasks linked to learning objectives significantly improved in all classes (p < .001), with 8%-58% of students before the session and 89%-100% of students after the session reporting being fairly/completely prepared. Qualitative responses also supported achievement of learning objectives. Rates of satisfaction with the required prep and lecture+ were 79% and 89%, respectively. Cited strengths included overall quality and the use of cases to highlight health care environmental impacts and opportunities for mitigation.

This resource fills an urgent need for an integrable session for medical schools hoping to achieve action-oriented, foundational climate-health competencies. Key characteristics of this work include the diversity of the development team, ease and flexibility of session implementation, a focus on empowerment, and strong assessment and evaluation data supporting achievement of learning objectives.