International Planetary Health Education in Undergraduate and Graduate Medical Curricula: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Background Climate change is a public health emergency, yet planetary health education is absent for many medical and health professions trainees. Objective To perform a scoping review exploring the inclusion of planetary health in undergraduate and graduate medical education. Methods A search strategy was developed with a health sciences librarian and run on 6 databases from their inception to February 2022: MEDLINE, Embase, APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, Global Health, and Scopus. The Arksey and O'Malley framework was employed to broadly select publications that described the implementation of planetary health in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. Commentaries were included if they outlined a potential curriculum. Extracted data was grouped thematically using an iterative approach based on competencies described, key considerations, and anticipated barriers. Results After screening 2407 articles, 42 were included. Thirty articles involved medical education at undergraduate or postgraduate levels, while 10 discussed multidisciplinary education including veterinary medicine, public health, and nursing. Two articles discussed planetary heath education for staff physicians. Reported competencies included eco-medical literacy, environmental inequity, and planetary health advocacy. Key considerations for curricular development included longitudinal implementation, interprofessional collaboration, and experiential learning through quality improvement projects. Barriers to implementation included time constraints and the lack of knowledgeable educators and administrative support for curricular change. Conclusions This scoping review outlines key recommendations and barriers to help facilitate the implementation of planetary health education in medical training.

Figure 1

PRISMA 2020 Flow Diagram for New Systematic Reviews That Included Searches of Databases and Registers Only Note: Consider, if feasible to do so, reporting the number of records identified from each database or register searched (rather than the total number across all databases/registers). If automation tools were used, indicate how many records were excluded by a human and how many were excluded by automation tools.

Figure 2

Curricular Components Abbreviation: QI, quality improvement.