How to communicate about climate change with patients
BMJ 2024; 385 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-079831 (Published 17 April 2024) Cite this as: BMJ 2024;385:e079831
- John Kotcher, research associate professor1,
- Lisa Patel, executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, and clinical associate professor2,
- Stefan Wheat, planetary health theme director, and assistant professor3,
- Rebecca Philipsborn, associate professor4,
- Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication, and distinguished university professor1
- 1Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
- 2Department of Pediatric/Hospital Medicine, Stanford University, Pleasanton, CA 94588, USA
- 3Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98133, USA
- 4Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA
- Correspondence to: jkotcher{at}gmu.edu
What you need to know
As trusted advisors, health professionals can listen to their patients, raise awareness of climate change as a health issue, provide personalised guidance, and share solutions to protect the health of patients
Multiple opportunities exist to efficiently integrate climate related counselling into clinical practice, including healthcare screening, history taking, management of long term conditions, and discharge and aftercare planning
There is limited evidence of effectiveness of climate related counselling of patients, but broader literature on clinician-patient communication shows that counselling can enhance health outcomes
Climate change is arguably the most significant global health threat of the 21st century.1 Despite the increasingly visible impacts of climate change on our lives and health, conversations about climate change seem to have been shut out of the consultation. Where time and resources are under pressure, there may be little room for wider health promotion and conversations about underlying contributors to ill health. For many visits, though, the effects of climate change or fossil fuel pollution are intrinsic to the medical problems of the patient and the reasons for their visit. As trusted advisors, health professionals are in a position to help their patients understand the impact of climate change on their health, and what they can do about it at an individual and societal level. Here we present an overview of the ways that climate change may be incorporated into consultations, the evidence base for the impact this may have, and the barriers to change.
Communicating with patients about climate change
We believe that patient counselling around climate sensitive health hazards is an ethical duty of healthcare professionals.2 This duty is multifactorial and builds on bioethical principles of nonmaleficence and social justice: climate change associated exposures pose harm to an individual’s health, climate change worsens existing health inequities, and climate change poses a serious threat to societies and humanity. …