Photo by: Pixabay user Gerd Altmann

Study: Teaching community organizing principles to health professionals significantly increases their capacity to take climate action

01/09/2024 | Academic Medicine

Community organizing skills empower a new movement of physicians advancing climate solutions

BOSTON, Mass. – Healthcare professionals are among the most trusted voices when it comes to climate action, but often lack the personal belief in their capacity to make a meaningful impact while also feeling burned out, isolated, overwhelmed by the scope of the problem, and buried under busy clinical schedules. A study published today in Academic Medicine finds that healthcare providers who took part in a community organizing fellowship that addresses these challenges increased their understanding of how climate impacts health and health equity; their sense of purpose and community; and their ability to develop strategies that reduce negative impacts of climate change on people’s health. 

The study, led by the Cambridge Health Alliance Center for Health Equity and Education and Advocacy (CHEEA) in collaboration with the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE), offers a novel approach for those in healthcare who want to take climate action but don’t know how.

The Climate Health Organizing Fellowship, led by CHEEA and Harvard Chan C-CHANGE from January 2022 – June 2022, taught health professionals the skills of public narrative and community organizing, based on the teaching principles of Harvard Kennedy School faculty Marshall Ganz, and helped fellows develop projects to address climate change in their home organizations and communities. 

“It can feel lonely and daunting to see how climate change is hurting our patients and to have no idea how to help,” said lead author Dr. Gaurab Basu, co-director of the fellowship and education and policy director at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE. “This fellowship trains healthcare professionals as advocates and organizers so they can create climate solutions in their communities and find their identity as changemakers.”

The study followed a cohort of 40 health professionals who took part in the 6-month fellowship that taught how community organizing practices can mitigate the health and health equity effects of climate change. In pre- and post-fellowship surveys, participants assessed their understanding of how climate impacts health; their mastery of community organizing practices; and their sense of community, purpose, self-efficacy, and burnout in climate work. Participants reported statistically significant improvements in 11 of 17 areas after the fellowship, including:

  • Understanding the historical context of health inequities related to climate change (increase from 68% agree to 97% agree)
  • Knowing how best to contribute to addressing climate change (increase from 63% agree to 97% agree)
  • Understanding the principles of community organizing (increase from 37% agree to 100% agree) and how to put them into practice (increase from 32% agree to 95% agree)
  • Believing they can develop effective strategies a) to reduce adverse effects of climate change on people’s health (increase from 50% agree to 97% agree); b) to combat climate change at their home organization (increase from 47% agree to 97% agree); and c) in their local community (increase from 37% agree to 92% agree). 
  • Believing they can make a difference in addressing climate change (increase from 84% agree to 100% agree)
  • Feeling a sense of community among colleagues in addressing climate change (increase from 68% agree to 90% agree)

The findings come on the heels of the first-ever UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) to host a Health Day, which shed light on how climate change harms health in every corner of the world—a reality that healthcare providers see every day as they treat patients suffering from climate impacts and chronic issues related to air pollution.

“The Climate Health Organizing Fellowship brings together clinicians for a year-long commitment to learn, lead, and take action,” said Pedja Stojicic, co-director of the fellowship and adjunct lecturer on health policy and management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “What we found is that fellows are not only gaining tangible skills like narrative storytelling, but they also feel a stronger sense of purpose and self-efficacy, which are critical to taking action and fighting burnout.”

Capstone projects included:

  • Successfully procuring electric buses for public schools in Georgia
  • Building capacity of state-wide climate and health equity initiatives in Wisconsin
  • Successfully advocating that the American Medical Association declare climate change a public health emergency
  • Successfully advocating to have the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center sign the HHS pledge to decarbonize hospital emissions
  • Raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on cancer care, leading the American Society for Radiation Oncology to pass a climate change policy statement and develop a climate change working group

The third year of the Climate Organizing Fellowship is underway and will accept the next round of applications starting in Spring 2024.

Press contact: Anna Miller, amiller@hsph.harvard.edu

Read the study in Academic Medicine

Related media:

  • Bold new program equips doctors to take action on climate initiatives: ‘When I speak, people listen’ (The Cool Down)
  • Good health depends on a stable climate. This fellowship teaches health professionals how to advocate for both. (Grist)
  • A prescription for better electric engagement (Op-ed by Dr. Gaurab Basu)

### 

About Harvard Chan C-CHANGE

The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) increases public awareness of the health impacts of climate change and uses science to make it personal, actionable, and urgent. The Center leverages Harvard’s cutting-edge research to inform policies, technologies, and products that reduce air pollution and other causes of climate change. By making climate change personal, highlighting solutions, and emphasizing the important role we all play in driving change, Harvard Chan C-CHANGE puts health outcomes at the center of climate actions. To learn more visit https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/.

About The Cambridge Health Alliance Center for Health Equity Education & Advocacy

The Center for Health Equity Education & Advocacy (CHEEA) is an educational initiative at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) that seeks to better equip healthcare professionals with opportunities to engage in meaningful social justice curriculum, community building, discussion, and mentorship. The center seeks to better position health professionals to be change makers. To learn more visit https://www.healthequity.challiance.org/.

Preterm and early-term birth, heat waves, and our changing climate

Heat waves pose an escalating threat to human health in general and the health of pregnant people and infants in particular.

Read Now

Harvard Medical School’s New Climate Change Curriculum Shows Early Success

New report details how Harvard Medical School developed, implemented, and evaluated its curriculum to prepare healthcare professionals for climate change.

Read Now

Toward a Climate-Ready Health Care System: Institutional Motivators and Workforce Engagement

Dr. Caleb Dresser argues that health care systems must reframe incentives and engage their workforce to become climate-resilient.

Read Now

Study: Teaching community organizing principles to health professionals significantly increases their capacity to take climate action

Read Now

Federal investments in climate change and health research are inadequate says Harvard analysis

Critical knowledge gaps hinder an evidence-based response and are perpetuated by scarce federal research funds.

Read Now

Hundreds of Hospitals on Atlantic and Gulf Coasts at Risk of Flooding from Hurricanes

Our study is the first to systematically investigate flooding risk to nearly 700 U.S. hospitals on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from Category 1-4 storms.

Read Now

Communicating Statistics on the Health Effects of Climate Change

Health professionals need to communicate the health and equity implications of climate change effectively to protect health and motivate action.

Read Now

A Pediatrician’s Guide to Climate Change-Informed Primary Care

A practical approach for connecting climate change with health during pediatric well visits.

Read Now

The medical response to climate change

Our Director Dr. Aaron Bernstein lays out five pillars for the medical response to climate change.

Read Now

Adding A Climate Lens To Health Policy In The United States

Our Yerby Fellow Dr. Renee Salas and Interim Director Dr. Aaron Bernstein outline specific recommendations for achieving climate action through health policy and decision making.

Read Now

The climate crisis and clinical practice

Read Now

Harvard and NEJM to tackle the clinical impacts of climate change in Boston, Australia and across the U.S.

Six health systems across the U.S. and one in Australia commit to convening local providers to explore how the climate crisis impacts care delivery.

Read Now

Despite climate change threats, few medical schools teach it

Climate change poses threats to public health and concerned health care professionals call for medical schools to incorporate it into their curriculum.

Read Now

Rx for the planet's fever

A physician makes a call to action to his colleagues to treat climate change as a critical health issue.

Read Now

Viewpoint: Encouraging health professionals’ civic engagement to address health impact of climate crisis

Health professionals who want to address the effects of the climate crisis on the health of people and the planet should become more civically engaged.

Read Now

Green resolutions

How you can do right by your health, your wallet, and the planet in 2020.

Read Now

A focus on news about the environment

The Australian bush fires, the politics of climate change, and sea level rise in Boston’s disadvantaged neighborhood were among the topics discussed in a new environmental news roundtable on the WGBH radio show “Under the Radar with Callie Crossley.” One of the panelists featured in the roundtable, which premiered on January 12, 2020, was pediatrician…

Read Now

A doctor's guide to health in a changing climate

Connecting health, health care, and climate change and offering actions families can take to protect their health.

Read Now

The rising health threats of a hot planet

Patients are already feeling the health effects of climate change, and physicians play an important role in providing information and advocating for policies that put less stress on the planet.

Read Now

Why physicians see climate change as a health emergency

Research Fellow Renee Salas on how climate change disrupts patient care.

Read Now

Gaurab Basu

Gaurab Basu MD, MPH

Gaurab's work focuses on the intersection of climate change, health equity, medical education, and advocacy.

View Profile