An infographic for planetary health in primary care featuring four principles for environmentally sustainable healthcare: avoid unncessary care, empowering patients, choose environmental alternatives, shirt to prevention.
This primer is an introduction to planetary health in the primary care setting and is designed to highlight ways practitioners can integrate these principles into their clinical work. It is not intended to duplicate existing resources on other important topics such as political and personal actions or hospital-based solutions. It o ers examples, practice tips and links to existing resources to educate, inspire and remove barriers to change, organized around the our principles. Readers may want to read it from start to finish or by sections.
This simple QI project demonstrates the feasibility of implementing a small change in a primary care clinic that can improve environmental sustainability with multiple co-benefits. If all family physicians in Canada eliminated exam table paper in their offices, it would result in savings of approximately 95 940 km of paper, 121 680 trees, $C8 400 600 and 3054 T CO2 emissions, equivalent to driving around the world 360 times.
Adopting a planetary health lens provides a new way to think about environmental sustainability in primary care. With many providers working together to incorporate the 4 principles of sustainable health care into our everyday work, we can help reduce the health sector’s environmental footprint with additional benefits for patients, providers, and the health care system.
The Playbook provides background information, resources, and considerations for integrating vital Indigenous-led perspectives, values, and wisdom into the guidance for climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience of pharmacy practice. These considerations have been compiled from a review of key literature, Indigenous-led health advocacy movements, and the perspectives, values and experiences of pharmacy and other health professionals with Indigenous ancestry. This Playbook is intended for Canadian pharmacy professionals including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, pharmacy assistants, educators and trainees. Foundational considerations for pharmacy practice can be found in the “Climate Resilient, Low Carbon, Sustainable Pharmacy” Playbook.
Métis pharmacist Amy Lamb, Executive Director of the Indigenous Pharmacy Professionals of Canada, shared her experiences supporting pharmacy services to Indigenous communities as a front-line pharmacy professional and systems advocate. This webinar focused on the experiences of community pharmacies building sustainable distribution to rural and remote communities and navigating health access during climate emergencies. It shared stories and lived experiences from pharmacy professionals and Indigenous community members as they navigated pharmacy and broader health access. It also highlighted the importance of land in the holistic healing of Indigenous communities, emphasizing its role in structural determinants of health and the impacts of environmental racism.
This playbook offers practical guidance and considerations for integrating social and nature prescribing into healthcare practices, fostering community partnerships, promoting high-impact programs, and better understanding the potential for environmental co-benefits of these programs. It is intended for health care providers, program administrators, link workers, researchers, educators, and anyone else interested in better understanding the environmental co-benefits of social and nature prescribing. Developed in collaboration with the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing (CISP), a national hub anchored by the Canadian Red Cross, this playbook builds on a literature review and expert guidance to connect healthcare, social services, and community supports for improved health and well-being. The playbook aims to: Provide background information, resources, and considerations for guiding social and nature prescribing practices. Highlight how nature prescribing, as a variation of social prescribing, can generate significant environmental co-benefits.
In this session of the Sustainable Primary & Community Care Implementation Series, we will hear from a multi-disciplinary team who are putting social prescribing concepts into practice, learn more about building community engagement and resilience, and co-creating programs: Gary Bloch, Family Physician and Physician Lead, Equity and Social Interventions, St. Michael’s Hospital Academic Family Health Team Nassim Vahidi-Williams, Manager, Community and Patient Engagement, SMHAFHT Sandesh Basnet, SEED Program Link Worker, SMHAFHT Janet Rodriguez, Lived Experience Expert Advisor, SMHAFHT
