Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing Commons^™

Nurse Awareness Of An Environmental Stewardship Framework For Climate Health, Sarah Johnson, Elizabeth Schenk, Teresa Rangel

Providence Nursing Research Conference 2023 – Present

Background: The World Health Organization has recently stated that climate change is the single biggest threat to the health of humanity. Climate change is largely driven by human activity generating pollutants that negatively impact the environment. The healthcare sector’s operations alone account for nearly 8.5% of annual United States (U.S.) greenhouse emissions. Nurses are well-positioned within the healthcare space to take actions to reduce healthcare emissions and promote environmental health. For instance, a nurse-authored framework helps contextualize causes of healthcare pollutants as: Waste, Energy/water, Agriculture/food, Chemicals, and Transportation (WE ACT). A large, 52-hospital health system in the United States …