Warming world, informed care: Piloting a script to guide climate conversations in healthcare

Introduction

While including climate change in patient health counseling offers several potential benefits, research on provider-patient communication about the climate-health connection is limited. To better understand how physicians can introduce climate-health education into patient encounters, researchers (two medical doctors in a climate-and-health equity fellowship and a climate communication scientist) developed and piloted a brief provider-patient counseling script.

Results

Patient reactions were largely positive. Challenges faced by clinicians included lack of time to implement additional patient education during routine visits and concerns about lack of economic reimbursement.

Conclusion

Although a nascent step, this study may help other physicians begin these crucial conversations with their patients.