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Climate informed pediatric care - Nurturing a better future for children
Cheryl Anderson1,2, Robert McLellan3, Carl Cooley4
1Department of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, United States.
Introduction:
Climate change poses significant health risks and children are particularly vulnerable to its effects. In 2024, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its clinical recommendations for climate-informed care in a policy statement, urging pediatricians to incorporate climate change counseling into clinical practice. In alignment with this policy, Dartmouth Health embarked on an 18-month initiative to develop and pilot test a novel Climate-Informed Pediatric Care (CIPC) toolkit to increase uptake of the AAP policy statement's clinical recommendations in general pediatric practices.
Methods:
A short educational session was offered and a toolkit of resources was provided to seven community practices throughout the health system. Changes from baseline were assessed by pre- and post-implementation surveys. Toolkit use was measured manually and through reports generated from the electronic medical record.
Results:
Overall, our findings show that a climate-informed care toolkit holds promise in helping busy clinicians incorporate climate counseling into practice. There was improved overall confidence in having climate-informed conversations with patients after the intervention, and about half of study participants reported using at least one toolkit item.
Conclusion:
Though further study is needed, the findings from this pilot show a climate-informed care toolkit has the potential to help pediatricians align with the current AAP guidelines.
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