{"pk":50824,"title":"Implementing a Climate Health Education Curriculum for Emergency Medicine Trainees and Faculty","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>As climate-related health impacts intensify, emergency physicians (EP) increasingly encounter patients whose conditions are influenced by environmental change. To provide care for climate- vulnerable patients in the emergency department (ED), EPs should be educated on the impacts of climate change. The goal of our intervention was to provide a structured climate health educational curriculum to attending physicians, residents, and medical students and assess the perceived effectiveness of the curriculum. A longitudinal climate health curriculum was delivered in a four-part lecture series over the course of three months to medical students, postgraduate year 1-3 emergency medicine residents, and academic emergency attending physicians. We measured learners’ perceived knowledge pre- and post-curriculum with surveys assessing four core areas: 1) climate change topics; 2) climate impacts on human health; 3) confidence in treating medical conditions exacerbated by climate change; and 4) climate change solutions. At the completion of the three-month curriculum, the learners reported a statistically significant improvement in perceived level of knowledge in overall climate health topics in 87.5% (28/32 concepts with P &lt; .05) of concepts assessed during the climate health education curriculum. Specifically, learners reported a perceived knowledge improvement in concepts of general climate change (6/6 topics, P &lt; .05), impacts on human health (7/8 topics, P &lt; .05), confidence in treating medical conditions exacerbated by climate change (8/9 topics, P &lt; .05), and knowledge of climate solutions (7/9 topics, P &lt; .05). Overall, learners reported a higher median likelihood of implementing individual climate solutions after the conclusion of the climate health education curriculum, although this was not statistically significant (5.0 vs 7.0, P = .073). Our model introduces the concept of a longitudinal, lecture-based climate change curriculum to assist in educating resident learners in evidence-based climate health knowledge, assist in preparing EPs to better treat climate-vulnerable patient populations, and share climate solutions. </p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0","short_name":"CC BY 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\r\n\r\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"climate change"},{"word":"Emergency Medicine"},{"word":"curriculum development"},{"word":"Graduate Medical Education"},{"word":"Climate Health"},{"word":"Medical Education"},{"word":"GME"}],"section":"Climate Change","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rp3t0v3","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Eric","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lewis","name_suffix":"","institution":"The MetroHealth System, Cleveland, Ohio","department":""},{"first_name":"Courtney","middle_name":"M.","last_name":"Smalley","name_suffix":"","institution":"Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic Health System, Department of Emergency Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio","department":""},{"first_name":"Matthew","middle_name":"","last_name":"Kostura","name_suffix":"","institution":"Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic Health System, Department of Emergency Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio","department":""}],"date_submitted":"2025-09-02T22:55:33.828000Z","date_accepted":"2026-01-02T21:28:53.819000Z","date_published":"2026-05-04T03:07:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/westjem/article/50824/galley/50336/download/"}]}