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The climate crisis in clinical practice: Addressing air pollution, heat, and microplastics
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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.
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Ecological transition and health: the role of physicians and healthcare
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This perspective article examines the role of physicians and healthcare workers in addressing climate change and pollution as major public health threats, including microplastics, PFAS, and fine particulate matter. It argues that the medical community must move beyond disease treatment to advocate for reduced fossil fuel use and sustainable healthcare policies.
Planetary health and clinical practice: From concept to consultation
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Climate change and pollution aren't just environmental problems—they're already showing up in doctors' offices as heat stroke, asthma attacks, and even tiny plastic particles found in blood vessel plaques and brains, where they're linked to higher risks of heart problems and dementia. This review argues that doctors should start treating environmental factors as a routine part of patient care, alongside simple fixes like choosing lower-carbon inhalers and cutting back on unnecessary medications. The bigger takeaway for you: a healthier planet and a healthier body increasingly go hand in hand, so the air you breathe, the plastics you're
Sustainability in Obstetrics and Gynecology
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This review examines how the climate crisis disproportionately affects women and pregnant people through exposure to air pollution, extreme heat, and toxic substances. Researchers found that healthcare practices in obstetrics and gynecology, including operating rooms and neonatal units, also contribute to environmental harm through waste generation and carbon emissions. The study proposes strategies for decarbonizing clinical settings while improving health outcomes for vulnerable patient populations.
Climate change and the epithelial barrier theory in allergic diseases: A One Health approach to a green environment
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This review links climate change and increased environmental pollution to the weakening of epithelial barriers in the skin, gut, and lungs, contributing to the rise of allergic diseases worldwide. The paper specifically identifies microplastics alongside other pollutants as agents that damage epithelial barriers, suggesting a mechanism by which microplastic exposure could contribute to allergies and autoimmune conditions.
Environmentally sustainable critical care: Special issue introduction
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This editorial introduces a special issue on environmentally sustainable critical care, highlighting the healthcare sector's significant contribution to climate change, air pollution, and waste generation. The authors discuss how the triple planetary crisis of environmental degradation is both worsened by and harmful to healthcare delivery. The piece calls for urgent action to reduce the environmental footprint of medical care, including addressing single-use plastics and waste management.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.