“I teach it because it is the biggest threat to health”: Integrating sustainable healthcare into health professions education

Abstract

Background

Steering planetary and human health towards a more sustainable future demands educated and prepared health professionals.

Aim

This research aimed: to explore health professions educators’ sustainable healthcare education (SHE) knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy and teaching practices across 13 health professions courses in one Australian university.

Methods

Utilising a sequential mixed-methods design: Phase one (understanding) involved an online survey to ascertain educators’ SHE knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy and teaching practices to inform phase two (solution generation), ‘Teach Green’ Hackathon. Survey data was descriptively analysed and a gap analysis performed to promote generation of solutions during phase two. Results from the hackathon were thematically analysed to produce five recommendations.

Results

Regarding SHE, survey data across 13 health professions disciplines (n = 163) identified strong content knowledge (90.8%); however, only (36.9%) reported confidence to ‘explain’ and (44.2%) to ‘inspire’ students. Two thirds of participants (67.5%) reported not knowing how best to teach SHE. Hackathon data revealed three main influencing factors: regulatory, policy and socio-cultural drivers.

Conclusions

The five actionable recommendations to strengthen interdisciplinary capacity to integrate SHE include: inspire multi-level leadership and collaboration; privilege student voice; develop a SHE curriculum and resources repository; and integrate SHE into course accreditation standards.

Keywords:

• Education environment
• integrated
• public health
• leadership
• roles of teacher

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (Project ID: 19961).

Acknowledgements

The project was supported by the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, through a Learning and Teaching Research Grant Scheme for 2019.

We would like to thank Associate Professor Claire Palermo, from Monash Centre for Scholarship in Health Education (MCSHE), for initiating the collaboration and guiding the grant application, and to Bethany Carr for her contribution to developing the grant proposal.

We acknowledge all of the educators who completed the online survey and participated in the Hackathon; they provided us with valuable insights into how sustainable healthcare education can be integrated into health professions education.

Disclosure statement

GB, GIB, JB, LB, CI, RW, MS, and MK declare there are no competing interests.

PS has undertaken paid consultation for government, multilateral organisations and non-government organisations, and has received grants unrelated to this project from institutions associated with climate change and health and sustainable healthcare education.

JC has received travel grants to present and conduct research relating to sustainable healthcare outside of this research project.

Glossary

Education for sustainable healthcare (ESH): Is the process of equipping current and future health professionals with the knowledge, attitudes, confidence and capacity to provide environmentally sustainable services through health professional education (Walpole et al. 2017).

Planetary health: Is a field focused on characterizing the human health impacts of human-caused disruptions of Earth’s natural systems (Planetary Health Alliance 2020).

Notes

1 A collaborative and cooperative process where people participate in a learning activity focused around movement, conversation, and reflection that can be used both to discover and discuss background knowledge prior to studying a new topic as well as for reviewing content already learned.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Monash University, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Learning and Teaching Research Grant.

Notes on contributors

Gabrielle Brand

Associate Professor Gabrielle Brand, PhD, MN, BN, is an Associate Professor in School of Nursing & Midwifery at Monash University.

Jorja Collins

Jorja Collins, PhD, CF, AdvAPD, BND (Hons), GCHPE is a foodservice dietitian at Eastern Health and an academic in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food at Monash University.

Gitanjali Bedi

Gitanjali Bedi, MCESM, PGC Educ & Training for Sustainability, PGDip Int Dev, BCom, BA is an educator and sustainability education researcher with Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University.

James Bonnamy

James Bonnamy, RN, BNurs, BNurs (Hons), MNurs, GCHPE, MACN, MANZBA, is Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Victorian Adult Burns Service (The Alfred Hospital) and an Academic at Monash University (Australia) in Nursing and Midwifery, where he is researching education for sustainable healthcare.

Liza Barbour

Liza Barbour, MPH, GCIntHealth, GCDiabEd is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian teaching food sustainability systems and public health nutrition in Monash University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food.

Chanika Ilangakoon

Chanika Ilangakoon is a Lecturer in Nursing & Midwifery, Monash University.

Rosie Wotherspoon

Rosie Wotherspoon BN, MHPE is a Lecturer in Nursing & Midwifery, Monash University.

Margaret Simmons

Dr Margaret Simmons, PhD, BA (hons), Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director Year A, Monash Rural Health, Churchill. Qualitative researcher and medical sociologist teaching a social perspective on health to first year medical students, Margaret teaches and researches sustainability in health care.

Misol Kim

Dr Misol Kim, PhD, MSc, BE, is a Research Fellow in the Faculty of Engineering at Monash University, specialised in education for sustainability and developing educational assessment tools applying Rasch models.

Patricia Nayna Schwerdtle

Patricia Nayna Schwerdtle, RN, MPH, PGC-Health Professional Education, PGD-Crit.Care, Ba-HP, BN. Ph.D. student at Heidelberg University (Germany) researching climate change, migration, nutrition, and health. Adjunct Academic at Monash University (Australia) researching education for sustainable healthcare.