Teaching Planetary Health During the Anthropocene Epoch

Webinar Details

This webinar is hosted by AACN’s Faculty Leadership Network (FLN).

The Anthropocene is a geological epoch acknowledging human activity's influence on the planet's climate and ecosystem. It recognizes that human actions have been the primary factor affecting the environment, both locally and globally, for the past couple of centuries and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Currently, communities worldwide are facing new health challenges related to significant fluctuations in temperature. These have led to droughts, floods, changes in air quality, and unexpected variations in insect and rodent disease vectors. Unfortunately, many nursing students lack the knowledge, experience, or skills to collaboratively respond to these complex health challenges emerging in the 21st century. 

Therefore, there is a need to re-evaluate the curriculum to provide fresh insights into new health challenges related to living and working in the Anthropocene. The purpose of this presentation is to describe how a Planetary Health lens can enable an understanding and appreciation of the critical linkages, cause-effect relationships, and feedback loops between environmental change and human health in the Anthropocene epoch.

Objectives:

1. Define Anthropocene epoch.
2. Describe how a Planetary Health lens will enable an understanding and appreciation of the critical linkages, cause-effect relationships, and feedback loops between environmental change and human health.
3. Identify Anthropocene-related diseases based on The Centers for Disease Control’s (2022) “Climate Effects on Health” diagram. 
4. To re-evaluation of the nursing curriculum to include skills for real-world nursing practice in the Anthropocene Epoch

Note: Recording of the webinar will be available soon after the webinar airs. Visit AACN's On-Demand Webinars to watch.