Shariff Yumna, Mushtaq Muneeba, Shah Syed Muhammad Abdullah, Malik Hurais, Abdullah Muhammad, Jamil Muhammad Usama, Rehman Abdul, Hudaib Muhammad, Ahad Ahmad Umais, Mughal Sanila, Eljack Mohammed Mahmmoud Fadelallah
Bahria University Medical and Dental College, Karachi, Pakistan.
Fazaia Ruth Pfau Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan.
Environ Health Insights. 2024 Dec 24;18:11786302241310031. doi: 10.1177/11786302241310031. eCollection 2024.
Climate change represents an unprecedented global public health crisis with extensive and profound implications. The Lancet Commission identified it as the foremost health challenge of the 21st century. In 2015, air pollution alone caused approximately 9 million premature deaths worldwide. Climate change also exacerbates extreme weather events, displacement, mental health disorders, disease vectors, food insecurity, and malnutrition, particularly impacting vulnerable developing countries like Pakistan due to its agricultural reliance, diverse topography, and limited resources. This study assesses Pakistani medical students' perceptions of climate change's health impacts. Conducted in February 2024, a cross-sectional survey of 632 students using a standardized questionnaire was employed via online Google Forms. The questionnaire was validated and an Exploratory Factor Analysis identified seven subscales of environmental health consciousness. The mean participant age was 21.17 years, with a balanced gender distribution. Students showed high environmental health consciousness (Mean = 35.6, SD = 5.2), with 88% attributing climate change to human activities and 89.1% anticipating serious future health impacts. Significant concerns included air quality-related illness (91%), water-availability illness (86%), healthcare disruption (85%), cold-related illness (83%), and flooding-related displacement (87%). Psychological impacts were acknowledged by 68%. Household income, age, and gender were significant predictors. These results highlight the need for integrating climate change and health education into medical curricula to prepare future healthcare providers.
气候变化是一场前所未有的全球公共卫生危机，具有广泛而深远的影响。《柳叶刀》委员会将其确定为21世纪首要的健康挑战。2015年，仅空气污染就在全球造成了约900万人过早死亡。气候变化还加剧了极端天气事件、人口流离失所、心理健康障碍、病媒、粮食不安全和营养不良，由于巴基斯坦对农业的依赖、多样的地形和有限的资源，该国等脆弱的发展中国家尤其受到影响。本研究评估了巴基斯坦医学生对气候变化对健康影响的认知。2024年2月，通过在线谷歌表单对632名学生进行了一项横断面调查，使用了标准化问卷。该问卷经过验证，探索性因素分析确定了环境健康意识的七个子量表。参与者的平均年龄为21.17岁，性别分布均衡。学生们表现出较高的环境健康意识（均值=35.6，标准差=5.2），88%的人将气候变化归因于人类活动，89.1%的人预计未来会对健康产生严重影响。重大担忧包括与空气质量相关的疾病（91%）、与水资源可得性相关的疾病（86%）、医疗保健中断（85%）、与寒冷相关的疾病（83%）以及与洪水相关的流离失所（87%）。68%的人认识到了心理影响。家庭收入、年龄和性别是重要的预测因素。这些结果凸显了将气候变化和健康教育纳入医学课程以培养未来医疗服务提供者的必要性。
