Climate and Health for Healthcare Professions

Climate and Health for Healthcare Professions, offered by Duke University through Coursera, is a beginner-level online course designed to help healthcare professionals understand the links between climate change, human health, and healthcare systems. The course examines how environmental disruption affects individuals and communities, how healthcare contributes to climate impacts, and how health professionals can integrate climate awareness into patient care, organisational practice, and community resilience. No prior experience is required.

Core Content

The course is structured across four modules covering planetary health and climate change, the environmental impact and resilience of healthcare systems, climate-informed patient care, and the role of health professionals as agents of change. Learners explore health disparities, social vulnerability, healthcare emissions, decarbonisation, climate resilience, patient communication, emergency preparedness, advocacy, and systems-level action. Expert interviews and case examples show how healthcare professionals are already responding to climate and sustainability challenges.

Key Skills

Participants will develop the ability to explain how climate change threatens health and wellbeing, assess the sustainability and resilience challenges facing healthcare systems, and integrate climate-informed approaches into patient care through a health-equity lens. The course also builds skills in public health, advocacy, clinical leadership, patient communication, climate mitigation and adaptation, sustainable systems, community health, and leadership development.

Target Learners

This course is designed for students, trainees, practising healthcare professionals, administrators, and others working across health systems who want to understand and respond to climate-related health risks. It is particularly relevant for clinicians, nurses, public-health professionals, healthcare managers, and sustainability practitioners seeking to bring climate considerations into their professional practice. Coursera classifies the course as beginner level and requires no prior experience.

Learning Format

Hosted on Coursera, the course is delivered in a flexible online format with four modules and an estimated completion time of two weeks at around ten hours per week. The learning experience includes videos, readings, assignments, discussion prompts, expert interviews, case reflections, and applied activities focused on healthcare sustainability and climate-informed practice. Coursera also notes that the course includes four assignments, is taught in English, offers a shareable certificate, and allows learners to progress at their own pace.

Additional Benefits

The course offers practical value for healthcare professionals who want to connect climate knowledge directly with patient care, health-system operations, and community resilience. Its combination of planetary health, health equity, sustainable healthcare, communication, and advocacy helps learners move from awareness toward concrete professional action. The inclusion of healthcare experts and climate champions also gives participants real-world examples of how change can be implemented within clinical and organisational settings.

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