Version 1
: Received: 15 September 2023 / Approved: 19 September 2023 / Online: 20 September 2023 (04:48:03 CEST)
How to cite:
Evans, A.M. Stepping up for Climate Change and Health: The Three Pillars of Green Podiatry. Preprints2023, 2023091311. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202309.1311.v1
Evans, A.M. Stepping up for Climate Change and Health: The Three Pillars of Green Podiatry. Preprints 2023, 2023091311. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202309.1311.v1
Evans, A.M. Stepping up for Climate Change and Health: The Three Pillars of Green Podiatry. Preprints2023, 2023091311. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202309.1311.v1
APA Style
Evans, A.M. (2023). Stepping up for Climate Change and Health: The Three Pillars of Green Podiatry. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202309.1311.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Evans, A.M. 2023 "Stepping up for Climate Change and Health: The Three Pillars of Green Podiatry" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202309.1311.v1
Abstract
Introduction
The climate crisis is essentially a public health crisis. Response is imperative to prevent economic and social crises associated with the growing burden of climate impacts on human health and the health care sector.
Green Podiatry Pillars
By adopting the three pillars of Exercise, Evidence, and Everyday changes, podiatrists can contribute to more sustainable health and health care.
Discussion
Educating our patients to use their feet for low carbon active transport, eliminating interventions not supported by evidence, and reducing fossil fuel driven supply chains and energy use, are three impactful measures that all podiatrists, and indeed, all health and medical personnel, need to adopt.
The avoidable suffering, enormous and costly use of resources for diabetic foot disease, is a scourge that must realise its preventable potential. It is too late, too costly, too polluting, and too sad, to continue to direct health care and research efforts and budgets, to an expensive modifiable diabetes disease process, potentiated by poor food and physical inactivity. Affected patients require skilled support, to avert such chronic disease processes, often not of their making.
Conclusions
Healthcare contributes 5 to 8% of green house gases (GHG), and non-communicable diseases (NCD) are increasing, so healthcare must lead on primary health. As citizens and health professionals, we must advocate for better community health, and educate our patients.
Future Directions
All health and medical personnel need to consider planetary health and sustainable healthcare within their daily work. Healthcare must act to address climate change, and realise benefits for people and planet.
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
