Please login or create an account. If you do not have access to this content, you will be shown a 30 second preview and licensing options.
- Presentation
Climate Change and Dermatology: Advocacy, Patient Care, and Health System Decarbonization
Description
The speaker, a dermatologist, explains that climate change driven by fossil fuel combustion is the largest threat to planetary and human health, worsening heat, air pollution, extreme weather, biodiversity loss, and health inequities. She emphasizes that climate change is a threat multiplier affecting every organ system, including many climate-sensitive skin diseases, and that vulnerable groups such as children, older adults, outdoor workers, marginalized communities, and people in low-resource settings are disproportionately harmed. She also notes that health care itself contributes significantly to emissions, with dermatology generating notable procedural waste and energy use, creating a moral imperative to decarbonize care. The talk offers practical avenues for action: educate oneself and patients, take environmental histories, counsel patients on heat, UV, and air-quality precautions, use teledermatology, reduce waste through the “6 R’s,” and engage in organized medicine, policy advocacy, and voting. She concludes that dermatologists should actively support climate resilience, social justice, research, and system-level decarbonization to protect future health.
View moreConclusions
- Climate change is a human-driven health crisis rooted in fossil fuel combustion, and its effects are already widespread and worsening.
- Dermatology is directly affected because many skin diseases are climate sensitive, and climate change should be considered in everyday dermatologic practice.
- Climate change disproportionately harms vulnerable and marginalized populations, so climate advocacy in dermatology is also an equity and social justice issue.
- Healthcare both suffers from climate impacts and contributes to them, meaning dermatology and the broader health sector have a responsibility to decarbonize.
- Clinicians can make a meaningful difference by educating themselves and patients, modifying practice to reduce waste, and using teledermatology and other lower-carbon care models.
- Trusted physicians are well positioned to communicate about climate change, and simple repeated messages can increase patient and professional engagement.
- Organized medicine, professional societies, and legislative advocacy are essential levers for scaling climate action in healthcare.
- The field has entered a new era of climate medicine in which every tenth of a degree matters and urgent collective action is needed to protect future health.
- Myers, S.S. The Lancet, 2017. DOI: (10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32846-5).#10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32846-5
- doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2022.08.033#10.1016/j.jaad.2022.08.033
- Position Statement on Climate Change and Health
- The Voice of the American Dermatological Association: 2025 Official Policy Statement on Climate Change#10.1016/j.jid.2024.12.015
- The American Dermatological Association’s 2025 Official Policy Statement on Climate Change: a bold commitment toward health equity and sustainability#10.1007/s00403-025-03888-7