Integrating climate change and health topics into the medical curriculum - a quantitative needs assessment of medical students at Heidelberg University in Germany.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Rybol, Leonie Nieder, Jessica Amelung, Dorothee Hachad, Hafsah Sauerborn, Rainer Depoux, Anneliese Herrmann, Alina
Copyright Year	2023
Abstract	Objectives: Climate change (CC) is of major importance for physicians as they are directly confronted with changing disease patterns, work in a greenhouse gas intensive sector and can be potential advocates for healthy people on a healthy planet. Methods: We assessed third to fifth year medical students’ needs to support the integration of CC topics into medical curricula. A questionnaire with 54 single choice-based items was newly designed with the following sections: role perception, knowledge test, learning needs, preference of educational strategies and demographic characteristics. It was administered online to students at Heidelberg medical faculty. Data sets were used for descriptive statistics and regression modelling. Results: 72.4% of students (N=170, 56.2% female, 76% aged 20-24 years) (strongly) agreed that physicians carry a responsibility to address CC in their work setting while only 4.7% (strongly) agreed that their current medical training had given them enough skills to do so. Knowledge was high in the area of CC, health impacts of CC, vulnerabilities and adaptation (70.1% correct answers). Knowledge gaps were greatest for health co-benefits and climate-friendly healthcare (55.5% and 16.7% of correct answers, respectively). 79.4% wanted to see CC and health included in the medical curriculum with a preference for integration into existing mandatory courses. A multilinear regression model with factors age, gender, semester, aspired work setting, political leaning, role perception and knowledge explained 45.9% of variance for learning needs. Conclusion: The presented results encourage the integration of CC and health topics including health co-benefits and climate-friendly healthcare, as well as respective professional role development into existing mandatory courses of the medical curriculum.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC10291352&blobtype=pdf
Journal	GMS Journal for Medical Education [GMS J Med Educ]
Volume Number	40
DOI	10.3205/zma001618
PubMed Central reference number	PMC10291352
Issue Number	3
PubMed reference number	37377571
e-ISSN	23665017
Language	English
Publisher	German Medical Science GMS Publishing House
Publisher Date	2023-05-15
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Copyright © 2023 Rybol et al.
Subject Keyword	climate change health knowledge medical curriculum students' needs assessment
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education Medicine