Embedding Indigenous knowledges and voices in planetary health education

Interconnected health: A concept analysis of planetary empathy for healthcare professionals

BACKGROUND

Planetary Health emphasizes the interconnectedness of human health and the natural environment. Despite this, human-induced destruction of ecosystems threatens planetary stability. Understanding planetary empathy may offer insights into how healthcare professionals can better live and work with nature.

PURPOSE

This paper presents a concept analysis of planetary empathy, exploring its impact on healthcare and the roles of healthcare professionals.

METHODS

The Walker and Avant eight-stage approach for concept analysis informed this paper. Data were obtained from literature searches, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and relevant international organization websites.

DISCUSSION

Planetary empathy is a cyclical process involving reflection, reciprocal relationships with nature, recognition of biases, responsibility for future generations, and behavioral responses to protect planetary health.

CONCLUSION

Planetary empathy catalyzes prosocial environmental behaviors. Healthcare professionals who embody this empathy are more likely to be engaged in creating a healthier, more equitable world for all people and ecosystems.

Indigenous Elders' voices on health-systems change informed by planetary health: a qualitative and relational systems mapping inquiry

Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems are increasingly being looked to for solutions regarding climate change, including within clinical health-care settings. Indigenous Elders specifically are noted knowledge keepers within their communities and are often looked to with great respect for their Land-based knowledges as they pertain to planetary health approaches. We sought to explore the views of health-systems change informed by planetary health within the circumpolar north from the perspective of Indigenous Elders. We held a sharing circle, in which Elders identified four interconnected themes following a cyclical pattern that were also depicted with relational systems mapping, including the past and how we got here, where we are now, where we need to go in the future, and our reflections. Our findings showed that any concepts related to planetary health that are discussed within health systems cannot be disconnected from the context around them. Overall, health systems were stated to be currently devoid of any environmental context or consideration.

Tribally led planetary health education in southeast Alaska

Limited reporting of Indigenous-led planetary health education programmes has constrained efforts to expand planetary health education, in Indigenous communities and beyond, despite urgent need. Although incorporation of Indigenous knowledge and cultures cannot be standardised, showcasing successful programmes could reveal good practices and aid replicability. In this Personal View, we highlight how shellfish toxin education programmes, designed and organised by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, reduce local environmental health risks and support youth in pathways towards careers in planetary health. We describe how programmes build awareness and understanding of the local environment, environmental and health risks, and context-appropriate adaptation strategies by centring Tlingit culture and using hands-on activities that integrate Tlingit culture with western science. Lesson plans and resources created by Sitka Tribe of Alaska staff for these programmes are available in the US National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Partnerships for Environmental Public Health resources web database.

Twelve tips for developing healthcare learners' uncertainty tolerance

BACKGROUND

Uncertainty is pervasive throughout healthcare practice. Uncertainty tolerance (i.e. adaptively responding to perceived uncertainty) is considered to benefit practitioner wellbeing, encourage person-centred care, and support judicious healthcare resource utilisation. Accordingly, uncertainty tolerance development is increasingly referenced within training frameworks. Practical approaches to support healthcare learners' uncertainty tolerance development, however, are lacking.

AIMS

Drawing on findings across the literature, and the authors' educational experiences, twelve tips for promoting healthcare learners' uncertainty tolerance were developed.

RESULTS

Tips are divided into 1. Tips for Learners, 2. Tips for Educators and Supervisors, and 3. Tips for Healthcare Education Institutions and Systems. Each tip summarises relevant research findings, alongside applications to educational practice.

CONCLUSIONS

Approaches to developing uncertainty tolerance balance factors supporting learners through uncertain experiences, with introducing challenges for learners to further develop uncertainty tolerance. These tips can reassure healthcare education stakeholders that developing learner uncertainty tolerance, alongside core knowledge, is achievable.

Agency in the Anthropocene: education for planetary health

Collective action is essential to address planetary health as current and future environmental challenges are socioecological and require coordinated, informed, and sustained action from all societal sectors. Education that engages intergenerational communities is a crucial means of building collective action as it provides opportunities to develop an informed citizenry capable of making the necessary decisions to work towards planetary health. Schools are valuable sites of community learning and action, and will benefit from a new orientation towards and commitment to educator training, curriculum development, and youth agency. This orientation is supported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment's (PISA) 2025 Science Framework, which measures the competence (skills and knowledge) of 15-year-old students. This Personal View describes a new concept, Agency in the Anthropocene, a contributing element of the 2025 Science Framework that defines the way science education could develop agency and hope in this era of socioecological challenges that are impacting planetary health.

Ten characteristics of high-quality planetary health education-Results from a qualitative study with educators, students as educators and study deans at medical schools in Germany

Aim

The climate and ecological crises are considered fundamental threats to human health. Healthcare workers in general and doctors in particular can contribute as change agents in mitigation and adaptation. Planetary health education (PHE) aims to harness this potential. This study explores perspectives among stakeholders involved in PHE at German medical schools on the characteristics of high-quality PHE and compares them to existing PHE frameworks.

Methods

In 2021, we conducted a qualitative interview study with stakeholders from German medical schools involved in PHE. Three different groups were eligible: faculty members, medical students actively involved in PHE, and study deans of medical schools. Recruitment was performed through national PHE networks and snowball sampling. Thematic qualitative text analysis according to Kuckartz was used for the analysis. Results were systematically compared to three existing PHE frameworks.

Results

A total of 20 participants (13 female) from 15 different medical schools were interviewed. Participants covered a wide range of professional backgrounds and experience in PHE education. The analysis revealed ten key themes: (1) Complexity and systems thinking, (2) inter- and transdisciplinarity, (3) ethical dimension, (4) responsibility of health professionals, (5) transformative competencies including practical skills, (6) space for reflection and resilience building, (7) special role of students, (8) need for curricular integration, (9) innovative and proven didactic methods, and (10) education as a driver of innovation. Six of our themes showed substantial overlap with existing PHE frameworks. Two of our themes were only mentioned in one of the frameworks, and two others were not explicitly mentioned. Few important elements of the frameworks did not emerge from our data.

Conclusions

In the light of increased attention regarding the connections of the climate and ecological crises and health, our results can be useful for anyone working toward the integration of planetary health into medical schools' and any health professions' curricula and should be considered when designing and implementing new educational activities.

Towards an educational praxis for planetary health: a call for transformative, inclusive, and integrative approaches for learning and relearning in the Anthropocene

Fuelled by the intersecting challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and profound social, economic, and environmental injustices, calls for new ways to work together for a healthy, just, and sustainable future are burgeoning. Consequently, there is a growing imperative and mandate across the higher education space for transformative, inclusive, integrative-and sometimes disruptive-approaches to learning that strengthen our capacity to work towards the goals and imperatives of planetary health. This educational transformation requires attention to pathways of societal, policy, and system change, prioritising different voices and perspectives across jurisdictions, cultures, and learning contexts. This Viewpoint seeks to explore the developing areas of education for planetary health, while additionally reflecting on a praxis for education in the Anthropocene that is rooted within the confluence of diverse knowledges and practice legacies that have paved the way to learning and relearning for planetary health.