Climate informed pediatric care – Nurturing a better future for children

Introduction

Climate change poses significant health risks and children are particularly vulnerable to its effects. In 2024, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its clinical recommendations for climate-informed care in a policy statement, urging pediatricians to incorporate climate change counseling into clinical practice. In alignment with this policy, Dartmouth Health embarked on an 18-month initiative to develop and pilot test a novel Climate-Informed Pediatric Care (CIPC) toolkit to increase uptake of the AAP policy statement’s clinical recommendations in general pediatric practices.

Methods

A short educational session was offered and a toolkit of resources was provided to seven community practices throughout the health system. Changes from baseline were assessed by pre- and post-implementation surveys. Toolkit use was measured manually and through reports generated from the electronic medical record.

Results

Overall, our findings show that a climate-informed care toolkit holds promise in helping busy clinicians incorporate climate counseling into practice. There was improved overall confidence in having climate-informed conversations with patients after the intervention, and about half of study participants reported using at least one toolkit item.

Conclusion

Though further study is needed, the findings from this pilot show a climate-informed care toolkit has the potential to help pediatricians align with the current AAP guidelines.