Health Professionals and the Climate Crisis: Trusted Voices, Essential Roles

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By Edward Maibach, Howard Frumkin, Samantha Ahdoot · World Medical & Health Policy · March 3, 2021

Co-authored by Howard Frumkin, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

Climate change has triggered a global public health emergency that, unless adequately addressed, is likely to become a multigenerational public health catastrophe. The policy actions needed to limit global warming deliver a wide range of public health benefits above and beyond those that will result from limiting climate change. Moreover, these health benefits are immediate and local, addressing one of the most vexing challenges of climate solutions: that the benefits of greenhouse gas reduction are seen as long-term and global, which are remote from the concerns of many jurisdictions. In this commentary, we identify roles that health professionals and health organizations can play, individually and collectively, to advance equitable climate and health policies in their communities, health systems, states, and nations. Ultimately, health voices can work across national boundaries to influence the world’s commitments to the Paris Agreement, arguably the world’s most important public health goal.

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We Need a National Institute of Climate Change and Health

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 Howard Frumkin and Richard J. Jackson · Scientific American · November 22, 2020

Howard is a Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

Credit: Tiffany Dang

The climate catastrophes of 2020—wildfires, hurricanes, oppressive heat—left no doubt that climate change threatens health. And the COVID-19 pandemic left no doubt that preparing for predictable health challenges is essential to preventing needless suffering and dying. The two lessons are linked. We know climate change will increasingly affect health. Research shows, for example, that global temperature changes could lead to more heat-related deaths and deaths from diseases such as dengue fever and cholera that spread via insects and water. We urgently need to prepare. But we face critical knowledge gaps in areas such as diagnosis and prevention.

We recommend a solution: the immediate creation of a new unit at the National Institutes of Health—the National Institute of Climate Change and Health. With a budget of more than $40 billion, the NIH is the world’s largest, best-funded health research institution. Yet it devotes a measly $9 million annually to research directly related to climate change and health, according to its own tally.

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Joshua Brandon · REI · November 10, 2016

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As we give thanks for their service on Veteran’s Day, REI has asked one vet and a nationally renowned medical researcher to share their views on the healing power of the outdoors. It’s a reminder of how opting outside can help each of us rejuvenate and reconnect.

Why Living Around Nature Could Make You Live Longer

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Chelsea Harvey · Washington Post · April 19, 2016

Featuring Howard Frumkin, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

There are several theories about how nature affects mental health, said Howard Frumkin, dean of the school of public health at the University of Washington, who was not involved with the new study. One of them is known as the “biophilia” hypothesis, which was proposed by renowned biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson. This theory embodies the idea “that we evolved as a species embedded in nature over most of our existence as a species, and something about that nature contact still resonates with us,” Frumkin said. “Something about contact with nature is soothing and restorative and thereby good for mental health.”

It may also be that the social engagement that green spaces encourage can improve people’s mindsets as well. “Social connectedness is a predictor of good mental health, which is in turn a predictor of good physical health,” Frumkin said.