Health Care Workers Voices on Climate Change and Health
by Sophanith Ung
It is getting hotter and hotter nowadays. Rain patterns are changing, sometimes leading to prolonged drought. The duration of winter is shorter. Floods, landslides, and destructive winds frequently destroy physical infrastructure in many parts of the world including roads, buildings, food chains, agricultural systems, and lives on earth. Eventually, infectious and non-infectious diseases born from harsh climate conditions invade human beings. This is the climate change crisis. Life is getting miserable. At the same time, the role of health care workers is becoming more prominent in curbing health issues from climate change.
The Voice of Health Care Workers on Climate Change Crisis on Health (The Voice HCL) formed following my participation in the Alumni TIES seminar in Bangkok on “Public Health and Climate Crisis in the Indo-Pacific” in May 2022. The team includes, co-founders, Mr. Sophanith Ung and Mr. Buntha So and team members Mr. Soputhy Chan Sovannara, influenza surveillance officer and research fellow, Ms. Voleak Yin, a pharmacist working for Ministry of Environment’s Laboratory, and Mr. Hok Chan Borin, an IT expert. Our team believes that the involvement of young health care professionals is powerful in promoting awareness of the climate change crisis on health in the world as well in Cambodia. We conducted activities to understand perception and assess knowledge on the risk of climate change on health among young healthcare professionals in Cambodia. We then discussed the intersecting issues of climate change and public health in Cambodia and ran a 99-day social media campaign on climate change and health.
In an effort to understand the knowledge, perceptions and role of health care workers, we released an online survey titled “Assessing Healthcare Workers’ Perspective on Cross Path Issue Climate Change Effect on Health in Cambodia among School of Public Health Students Using Health Belief Model.” A total of sixty-eight postgraduate students took part in the survey. Of all respondents, thirty-two (47.1%) were female. The respondents to this survey study different majors including public health (30.9%), hospital administration (27.9%), health and community development (17.6%), epidemiology (14.7%), and nutrition (8.8%). Regarding employment background, the respondents mainly work in healthcare (46%), both in healthcare and climate change (8%), solely climate change (1%), or in a related work sector (22%). We found that knowledge and climate change awareness is slightly high (79.6%). They perceived that climate change is “susceptible” (75.8%) and severe (86.9%). However, our survey found that they do not have enough “self-efficacy” (48.2%) to address climate change issue, as they perceived barriers (60.8%) that make them hesitate in bringing out their “cue action” (59.6%) even though they have slightly high knowledge and perceived climate change as susceptible and severe.
To increase awareness of the consequences of climate change on health and the role of healthcare workers in fighting the climate change crisis, we invited 25 public health workers from 11 provinces and cities in Cambodia to participate in a full day workshop on the intersection of climate change and health in Cambodia on April 2, 2023. We were also honored and proud to have two important guest speakers from Cambodia Ministry of Health, Dr. Kol Hero, Director of Preventive Medicine Department, and Ms. Khlok Vichet Ratha, Deputy Director of Climate Change Department of Ministry of Environment who has substantial work experience in climate change and health. Both speakers gave keynote speeches and answered questions from workshop participants on lessons learned and their personal experience as experts in healthcare and climate.
As one of the key parts of the workshop, we conducted a world café group discussion among all the participants. The discussion focused on three topics that we used as tools for developing key messages to post on our 99-day social media campaign to increase climate change awareness. These themes included health issues in the context of a global climate change crisis, barriers in addressing climate change effects on health from a healthcare perspective, and advocacy messages to address awareness of climate change on health both in a global context and in a Cambodian context.
Last but not least, we ran our 99-day climate change awareness campaign on our Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram from April 15, 2023, to July 15, 2023. Through Facebook ads our messages were able to reach 432.6k users and 19.5k engagements out of 94 posts.
Our project’s work does not end now. We are pushing to develop an online library that will serve as a resource for younger generations and those eager to learn about the environment and climate change. We aim for the online library to go live in January 2024. If you are interested in sharing or donating any resources to our online library or learning more about our work, please email us at thevoicehcl@gmail.com or message us via Facebook: The Voice — HCL or Instagram: the_voice_hcl.
Sophanith Ung is a 2019 alumnus of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) from Cambodia. He participated in the May 2022 Alumni TIES seminar on Public Health and Climate Crisis in the Indo-Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand.
Alumni TIES is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and supported in its implementation by World Learning, in partnership with the Office of Alumni Affairs of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
