ePlanet
What is the ePlanet project?
The aim of the Erasmus+ funded ePlanet project is to provide educational resources on planetary health that can easily be integrated in several educational contexts or formats.
The central element of the project is the ePlanet game, an introduction to planetary health topics. In this educational game, players are presented with a node network, depicting different planetary health challenges organized around the topics of food, air pollution and heat, infectious diseases, and cross-cutting planetary health issues.
Background
Health systems are increasingly confronted with the impacts of shifting environmental conditions on health. Calls to integrate Planetary Health topics into medical curricula have been getting louder (IFMSA 2018), yet the already high course load only allows very limited space for additions or changes to the curricula.
Integrating a Planetary Health perspective into medical education equips (future) health professionals to understand broader relationships between health and the social and natural environments, promoting mitigation and adaption efforts to ongoing ecological and health crises. Additionally, health professionals are ideally placed as trusted and connected members of society to raise awareness for planetary health topics and advocate for sustainable health care.
Goals
- Integrate Planetary Health in medical education
Curricular adaptions in medical education are difficult and slow and including a topic such as planetary health is challenging. Based on the Planetary Health Educational Framework, the ePlanet project develops light-weight educational resources teaching about the interconnectedness of environmental, social and health challenges with a special relevance for future medical professionals.
- Stimulate ambassadorship for high quality and sustainable health care
Health professionals are ideally placed as trusted and connected members of society to raise awareness for planetary health topics and advocate for sustainable health care. Providing education on Planetary Health topics equips health professionals to communicate about the co-benefits of climate change mitigation and health but also to stimulate discussions in a broader societal context.
- Reduce the environmental footprint of the health care sector
Integrating Planetary Health into medical curricula also enables a critical look at the health care sector itself, which emits almost 5% of total greenhouse gases and thereby contributes to adverse health conditions. Raising awareness among the health sector work force is a crucial step in promoting a transformative change.
