Integrating a climate lens into the design of education programmes for health professionals

Climate change is the major public health crisis of this century. Extreme climate events lead to direct impacts on health systems. For example, increased hospital admissions and emergency department visits may result from exacerbated cardiorespiratory morbidity caused by extreme heat. Indirectly, climate change also leads to health system disruptions through impacts on hospital infrastructure and workforce burn-out. Globally, there is an increasing recognition of the important role that health systems must play to respond to the evolving impacts of climate change. In 2015, the WHO introduced an operational framework for building climate-resilient health systems, emphasising the role of the health workforce in guiding responses for transformational adaptation strategies.