4. Evidence to Action

Take Action, for yourself

Maintaining your own personal well-being amidst a world facing a climate crisis and a demanding profession is of the utmost importance. Medical students and physicians are not protected from the mental and physical impacts of our rapidly changing climate. Within the healthcare sector, rates of depression and physician burnout are already alarmingly high.

To work towards fostering confident, supported, and empowered medical students and physicians utilizing nature connection as a critical strategy to support personal well-being through and work towards a sustainable and resilient practice long term.

Begin by:

• Finding ways that you can meaningfully connect to nature.

• Advocating for increased opportunities to connect with nature in your practice.

  • Advocate for increased access to green space in hospitals and clinics

  • Communicate that work breaks can involve taking a moment to connect to nature

Take action, for your community

As highlighted in Topic 1: Climate Change & Population Health, “there is substantial research that emphasizes that the burden of climate change will be disproportionately felt by low-income and marginalized populations.” [2,3]

Accessibility to green space has been found to be disproportionately lower in low- income and marginalized communities [4, 5], despite these being the areas experiencing the greatest health inequalities. [5] Research has found that populations that are exposed to the greenest environments also have the lowest levels of health inequality related to income deprivation. [5, 6, 7, 8] Specifically, good access to green space was found to attenuate negative mental well-being, and all cause and circulatory mortality in economically deprived areas. [8,9]

Consider barriers to vulnerable communities may face when connecting to nature:

• Lack of surrounding green spaces (e.g. certain urban areas, lower income neighbourhoods)

• Lack of transportation methods (e.g. children and youth, people with disabilities, lower-income families)

• Lack of time (e.g. single mothers, lower-income families - inability to take time off)

Begin by:

• Advocating for increased neighbourhood green space, especially amongst the most vulnerable communities.

  • Advocate for increased quality and quantity of parks. Recall from the last section, proximity, and quality and quantity of parks significantly associated with increased mental health scores, and increased quality of life in urban areas. [4, 10, 11]

• Advocate for funding to subsidize activities/forms of connecting to nature to increase accessibility.

Take Action, For the Environment

The inextricable links between the health of our community and the health of our environment have become increasingly clear. Advocating for nature-based solutions such as motivating patients to utilize connecting to nature as a health promotion strategy, also has benefits for the environment in terms of climate change mitigation and adaptation. [12] Further, it has been found that connecting to nature promotes pro-environmental behaviours. [13, 14, 15]

Begin by:

• Advocating for increased green space for climate mitigation and adaptation.

• Utilizing the practical intervention of nature connection as a health strategy.

  • It has been shown that connecting to nature increases pro-environmental behaviours,

Learn more:

• How green space offers co-benefits to climate change, mitigation, adaptation and human health.

• How connecting to nature promotes pro-environmental behaviours.