YCCCH and the New York Academy of Medicine are bringing sustainable and climate-resilient healthcare to the forefront with Climate Week NYC.
Anish Veeram 2:36 am, October 04, 2024
Contributing reporter
Yulin Zhen, photo editor
On Friday, September 27, members of the Yale community, business leaders, health insurers, and public health experts gathered on New York’s Fifth Avenue to discuss climate-smart health care systems.
The Yale Center on Climate Change and Health (YCCCH) co-hosted the conference during New York City Climate Week and collaborated with the New York Academy of Medicine to conduct six panel discussions throughout the day.
“For the first year of New York City Climate Week, health was a key theme for organizers throughout Climate Week,” YCCCH Executive Director Jen Wang told the News. “They started thinking about health as something that they were really interested in bringing into the conversation.”
“Pent-up demand” — healthcare systems emerge as a major source of carbon emissions
The introduction of health care as a theme for Climate Week New York City follows a broader shift toward prioritizing climate-resilient health infrastructure – that is, health infrastructure designed with sustainability in mind. . The COP28 Conference of the Parties in December 2023 ushered in this trend, hosting the first-ever Health Day.
A major emitter of greenhouse gases, the U.S. health care system accounts for 8.5% of the nation’s total emissions. With a 6% increase from 2010 to 2018, the U.S. healthcare sector has the highest emissions rate of any developed country.
“Emissions from healthcare are so large that they are beyond most people’s understanding,” Dr. Paul Anastas, director of the Yale Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, told the News. “The fact that medicine is particularly energy-intensive probably doesn’t matter much, except that like many parts of society, it relies on fossil energy.”
Despite the heavy energy demands, the healthcare sector is particularly vulnerable to climate-related shocks. The increasing number of patients due to extreme weather events related to climate change is straining hospital capacity. Damage to these infrastructures can disrupt patient care, with models estimating that over the past decade, climate-related disasters have cost more than $14 billion and totaled more than 21,000 emergency department visits.
Dr. Megan Ranney, Dean of the School of Public Health, emphasized the importance of sustainable healthcare.
“There is increasing awareness and discussion about the intersection of climate and health, not only at the health care level, but also at the local, state, national, and international government levels,” Ranney said.
“Covering many areas” — a solution-focused conference
The conference’s six panels focused on action-oriented recommendations and leveraged diverse perspectives.
One panel discussed the classification and standardization of climate-induced health complications, or health complications resulting from changes in the climate. To record, identify, analyze, and exchange diagnostic information about health complications, the World Health Organization has adopted a system called the International Disease Code. However, there is an unmet need to classify climate-induced health complications.
Dr. Robert Dubrow, co-dean of YCCCH, spoke to the News about how these ICD codes could be revised.
“There has been discussion about actually creating new ICD codes related to climate,” Dubrow said. “So it’s not like someone has gastroenteritis, it’s gastroenteritis from a hurricane.”
Another YCCCH committee assessed climate risk from the perspective of health insurance providers.
Insurers need to consider a wide range of climate scenarios, from hurricanes and floods to heat, wildfires and sea level rise, Wang said.
Dr. Anne Kurth, President of the New York Academy of Medicine, described the unique perspective of health payers as they approach climate adaptation efforts.
“It’s the job of health insurers, insurers and actuaries to look ahead and assess risk,” Kearse said. “Historical risks alone will not address the challenges that will befall us in the future. It must be proactive.”
However, Ranney said climate sustainable policies still face challenges in their implementation.
She believes the main hurdle will be getting other countries to prioritize sustainability policies, especially for health systems that are struggling nationwide in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Nationwide, there are very few health care systems that are financially solid,” Ranney said. “Given all the other really serious challenges facing the health system, it may be difficult to urge people to take action on this.”
The Yale Center for Climate Change and Health was founded in 2015.
