Navigate the healthcare industry
Healthcare Brew covers pharmaceutical developments, health startups, the latest tech, and how it impacts hospitals and providers to keep administrators and providers informed.
Climate issues are changing patient care.
More than 84% of 146 total providers and caseworkers at frontline clinics, which are primary care centers that often treat low-income and marginalized patients, reported that climate change has affected patients’ health.
Still, 36.2% of the same group were able to discuss these health risks with patients, and 55.7% said that they wanted to learn more about how to help patients build resilience against extreme weather.
That’s according to a new survey conducted by health-focused relief and development organization Americares, Harvard Medical School, and the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The effects of climate change disproportionately impact low-income communities and patients of color. The US Environmental Protection Agency reported in 2021 that Black Americans are 34% more likely to live in places with the highest expected levels of childhood asthma and 40% more likely to live in areas where the rise in deaths due to extreme temperature is the highest.
The November 22 survey reviewed responses from 430 administrators (39.8%), caseworkers (3.9%), providers (30%), and other staff (26.3%) in 43 states. The responses were collected from September to November 2021.
Disruptors, needs. The most common disruptions, according to the survey, were operational issues like power outages (52.8%), clinic closures (52.3%), and clinic access issues(42.5%). The most common extreme weather events were power outages (52.1%), hurricanes (28%), and flooding (23.1%).
Hurricanes Milton and Helene earlier this year, for example, led to evacuations and supply shortages and hit some hospitals’ bottom line.
Due to extreme weather, the survey reported that emergency power (63.9%), real-time updates about the weather (51.9%), earlier access to emergency services (47.4%), and financial assistance (42.9%) were patients’ greatest healthcare-related needs.
In October, C-CHANGE and Americares also updated their 2022 toolkit to help frontline clinics prepare for and respond to climate-related issues in their facilities.