Climate change: Paediatricians call for education to be built into doctors’ training

Clinicians should be educated about climate change as part of their medical training and should be encouraged to get involved in environmental initiatives in the health service, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has said.

In a report including the findings of a global survey,1 the college found that climate change was already affecting how healthcare professionals were working and warned that the issue needed more attention.

The college set out to explore the impact of climate change on child health worldwide and carried out a survey with responses mostly from doctors, academics, community health workers, and volunteers. In responses from 139 healthcare professionals from 50 countries outside the UK, most (73%) said they believed that climate had affected rates of childhood morbidity, 15% were unsure, and 10% disagreed.

Respondents had seen evidence …