Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change
As recent extreme weather events demonstrate, climate change presents unprecedented and increasing health risks, disproportionately so for disadvantaged communities in the U.S. already experiencing health disparities. As patients in these frontline communities live through extreme weather events, so...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Journal of Primary Care & Community Health |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/21501319231170585 |
| _version_ | 1797842369163296768 |
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| author | Jennifer E. DeVoe Nathalie Huguet Sonja Likumahuwa-Ackman Andrew Bazemore Rachel Gold Leah Werner |
| author_facet | Jennifer E. DeVoe Nathalie Huguet Sonja Likumahuwa-Ackman Andrew Bazemore Rachel Gold Leah Werner |
| author_sort | Jennifer E. DeVoe |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | As recent extreme weather events demonstrate, climate change presents unprecedented and increasing health risks, disproportionately so for disadvantaged communities in the U.S. already experiencing health disparities. As patients in these frontline communities live through extreme weather events, socioeconomic and health stressors are compounded; thus, their healthcare teams will need tools to provide precision ecologic medicine approaches to their care. Many primary care teams are taking actionable steps to bring community-level socioeconomic data (“community vital signs”) into electronic medical records, to facilitate tailoring care based on a given patient’s circumstances. This work can be extended to include environmental risk data, thus equipping healthcare teams with an awareness of clinical and community vital signs and making them better positioned to mitigate climate impacts on health. For example, if healthcare teams can easily identify patients who have multiple chronic conditions and live in an urban heat island, they can proactively arrange to “prescribe” an air conditioner, heat pump, and/or air purifier. Or, when a severe storm/heat event/poor air quality event is predicted, they can take preemptive steps to get help to patients at high medical and socioeconomic risk, rather than waiting for them to arrive in the emergency department. Advances in health information technologies now make it technically feasible to integrate a wealth of publicly-available community-level data into EMRs. Efforts to bring this contextual data into clinical settings must be accelerated to equip healthcare teams to provide precision ecologic medicine interventions to their patients. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T16:46:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-556b18380c124c5d9d1fd4d34575db0a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2150-1327 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T16:46:48Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Primary Care & Community Health |
| spelling | doaj.art-556b18380c124c5d9d1fd4d34575db0a2023-04-22T11:33:40ZengSAGE PublishingJournal of Primary Care & Community Health2150-13272023-04-011410.1177/21501319231170585Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate ChangeJennifer E. DeVoe0Nathalie Huguet1Sonja Likumahuwa-Ackman2Andrew Bazemore3Rachel Gold4Leah Werner5Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USAOregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USAOregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USAAmerican Board of Family Medicine, Washington, DC, USAKaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research, Portland, OR, USAOregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USAAs recent extreme weather events demonstrate, climate change presents unprecedented and increasing health risks, disproportionately so for disadvantaged communities in the U.S. already experiencing health disparities. As patients in these frontline communities live through extreme weather events, socioeconomic and health stressors are compounded; thus, their healthcare teams will need tools to provide precision ecologic medicine approaches to their care. Many primary care teams are taking actionable steps to bring community-level socioeconomic data (“community vital signs”) into electronic medical records, to facilitate tailoring care based on a given patient’s circumstances. This work can be extended to include environmental risk data, thus equipping healthcare teams with an awareness of clinical and community vital signs and making them better positioned to mitigate climate impacts on health. For example, if healthcare teams can easily identify patients who have multiple chronic conditions and live in an urban heat island, they can proactively arrange to “prescribe” an air conditioner, heat pump, and/or air purifier. Or, when a severe storm/heat event/poor air quality event is predicted, they can take preemptive steps to get help to patients at high medical and socioeconomic risk, rather than waiting for them to arrive in the emergency department. Advances in health information technologies now make it technically feasible to integrate a wealth of publicly-available community-level data into EMRs. Efforts to bring this contextual data into clinical settings must be accelerated to equip healthcare teams to provide precision ecologic medicine interventions to their patients.https://doi.org/10.1177/21501319231170585 |
| spellingShingle | Jennifer E. DeVoe Nathalie Huguet Sonja Likumahuwa-Ackman Andrew Bazemore Rachel Gold Leah Werner Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change Journal of Primary Care & Community Health |
| title | Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change |
| title_full | Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change |
| title_fullStr | Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change |
| title_full_unstemmed | Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change |
| title_short | Precision Ecologic Medicine: Tailoring Care to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change |
| title_sort | precision ecologic medicine tailoring care to mitigate impacts of climate change |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/21501319231170585 |
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