INVESTMENT PRIORITIES

Health Workforce

Challenge

Frontline healthcare workers are seeing the effects of climate change on human health firsthand, but often lack training and resources to respond effectively. Though they are critical first responders, many frontline healthcare workers provide services in contexts that chronically experience staffing shortfalls and training gaps.

Opportunity to advance gender equality and SRHR

When healthcare workers have a strong understanding of how climate change is affecting sexual and reproductive health, they are able to provide evidence-based guidance for patients, particularly vulnerable women and young people, to help them reduce their risks and enhance their health outcomes. Frontline healthcare workers can also be vital first responders, policy advocates, and agents for advancing innovations that can promote population health and resilient health care systems in the face of climate change.

Recommended investments

  • Co-design training programs with healthcare professionals and climate scientists to develop an integrated women’s health and climate curriculum.

  • Include healthcare professionals when designing climate solutions to ensure that their knowledge about specific health risks or vulnerable populations (e.g., pregnant women) is incorporated.

  • Integrate staffing and human resource management into climate, emergency preparedness, and disaster planning. 

  • Develop opportunities for healthcare workers to engage as advocates in policy development processes, including by providing advocacy tools and training.

Illustrative metrics of success

  • Healthcare workers lead educational programs for community members to increase awareness about climate change, its specific impacts on SRHR, and co-benefits of sustainable practices.

  • Healthcare workers are trained to identify and document SRHR threats made worse by climate change / extreme climate events for reporting to local and national health officials.

  • Healthcare workers are trained (through protocol development and simulations) to support and participate in community-driven early warning systems (for low literacy/low-tech users), and disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts that include SRHR.

  • Healthcare workers are trained to develop strategies that promote sustainability and resilience such as energy efficient-facility improvements.

Case Study

Context

In South Asia, climate change is exacerbating current health inequities by expanding vector-borne diseases and jeopardizing maternal and neonatal health.

Description of Climate-Gender-SRH Innovation

In response, Columbia University published an educational course to equip healthcare practitioners in South Asia (and beyond) to promote an understanding of the specific health impacts of climate change (especially for vulnerable populations). Additional training objectives support practitioners to proactively assess vulnerabilities of the healthcare system in a changing climate, identify adaptation measures, and communicate the impacts of climate change on health to affected communities to support greater community-driven resilience measures. (Source: Columbia University)

Key Partners

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