B38-08 Impact of Climate Change Education on Fellow Attitudes, Knowledge, and Behavior

Abstract Rationale Climate change is a great threat to human health and significantly impacts respiratory disease. However, climate-related competencies are not required for Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) fellows by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education and little is known about the attitudes, knowledge, and behavior of PCCM fellows in relation to climate change and their pulmonary practice. Methods This is a retrospective review of data collected as part of a quality improvement initiative to improve climate-informed practice in an urban pulmonary and critical care fellowship program. All fellows were invited to an educational intervention on climate change and respiratory disease and completed a 16-item survey on their knowledge, attitudes and behaviors pre- and post-intervention. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Results Of 14 fellows who completed the pre-survey, 6 completed the post-survey. Pre-intervention, 50% of the fellows ranked climate change to have a “high” impact on patients with asthma and COPD vs 83% post-intervention. Both self-rated knowledge and confidence in engaging with patients or providing recommendations in the context of climate change also increased from a median of 2.5 (out of 5) pre-intervention to 3 post-intervention. Additionally, respondents were more likely to strongly agree that climate change should be included in pulmonary fellowship curriculums (median of 4 to 4.5) and more strongly disagree that the fellowship provided adequate education on the impact of climate change on respiratory disease (median of 3 to 1.5). Preferred educational methods on climate change included expert speakers, grand rounds and conferences focused on climate change. There were no significant self-reported changes in the environmental information obtained from patients during clinic visits. Conclusion PCCM fellows were more likely to believe climate change impacted patients with respiratory disease and should be included in the fellowship curriculum after an educational intervention. While fellow education improves self-rated knowledge and confidence discussing climate change, it did not impact self-reported behavioral change in the outpatient setting. Further research is required to better understand fellow attitudes and knowledge on the impacts of climate change nationally. This remains of utmost importance in the face of our ever-changing environment. This abstract is funded by: None