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The climate crisis in clinical practice: Addressing air pollution, heat, and microplastics
Summary
This review examines how climate change-driven environmental threats including air pollution, extreme heat, and microplastics are already affecting patients in clinical settings. Researchers found that these exposures disproportionately harm vulnerable populations and that physicians need to be equipped to recognize and address the health effects of environmental degradation. The study argues that healthcare professionals have a critical role to play in both treating affected patients and advocating for policies that reduce fossil fuel-related pollution.
Climate change and environmental degradation are among the most pressing public health crises of our time, driving a wide range of health outcomes that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. From air pollution to extreme heat, infectious diseases to microplastics, the threats are widespread, systemic, and growing. While planetary health encompasses many and multifaceted health impacts, this review will focus more specifically on three of the direct consequences of fossil fuels, namely air pollution, extreme heat as a result of global warming, and microplastics as a product of petrochemicals. As trusted professionals, physicians must be equipped to recognize, treat, and advocate against the environmental determinants of disease, both to improve patient outcomes and to foster systemic resilience.