Conceptualising Climate Vulnerability in Health Sciences Through Scenario-Based Learning

Since anthropogenic climate change is one of the most serious future challenges and therefore a major risk for public health, it is a crucial aspect of public health. Therefore, ecological public health has become a novel paradigm within public health, which mainly focuses on the concept of climate vulnerability. One of the most important questions is how health professionals should be prepared for handling different climate events in their professional field. Knowledge about climate events and their impact on health, especially of vulnerable groups, is crucial. The article discusses the integration of climate change in healthcare education using the example of two teaching and learning projects that we conducted. While it is hard to train on climate events in practice, we discuss scenario-based learning as a teaching–learning method using two case studies: in a multiprofessional course feed and in a multidisciplinary student group. We evaluated the outcome by different methods. As an additional evaluation tool, we used a questionnaire so that students could reflect on their learning experiences. Second, we conducted group discussions as part of the learning and teaching concept to reflect on the learning outcomes. We found that scenario-based learning is a suitable teaching–learning method for supporting professional awareness about the impacts of climate change on human health, depending on the learning environment and the structure of the learning group.