Climate Medicine: Where Climate Change and Healthcare Meet

Springtime has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Trees and grasses are greening up, flowers are blooming, and birds have returned to greet the morning with song. As many of Earth’s residents head into boreal summer, they know to expect rising temperatures.

But what does that heat mean for human health? What happens when infectious diseases expand into new regions, or when air quality worsens year after year? And how can people care for themselves and others in these changing conditions? These questions sit at the heart of climate medicine, a growing field that examines the deep connections between climate change and human health.

“Climate medicine recognizes those connections and helps identify informed actions,” says Shana Tarter, Managing Director of the Diploma in Climate Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Through her work, she helps equip healthcare professionals to understand these impacts and apply practical, prevention-focused approaches that support health and resilience in a changing environment.

The World Meteorological Organization, along with NASA and NOAA, has confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year on record, with 2023 and 2025 ranking among the next warmest. This trio was no fluke: the period from 2015 to 2025 represents the eleven warmest years on record.

In her role, Tarter prepares healthcare professionals to recognize climate-related health risks and integrate this knowledge into patient care, sustainability efforts, and policy. She also brings decades of leadership experience in wilderness and environmental medicine, including her work as a senior instructor and former associate director of NOLS Wilderness Medicine, as well as her service as immediate past president of the Wilderness Medical Society.

While climate change affects everyone, its health impacts are not distributed evenly, with vulnerable communities bearing the greatest burden. Increasingly common environmental stressors such as extreme heat, worsening air quality, and climate-driven disasters are intensifying both acute and chronic health harms. “Virtually everyone has had an experience with the effects of climate change,” says Tarter. Extreme weather, drought, heat, wildfire smoke, and shifting disease patterns are no longer future concerns; they are already influencing our decisions about work, recreation, and health today.

The outdoor workforce is particularly exposed to extreme heat, whether that’s an employee of an outdoor program like NOLS, a construction worker, or a delivery driver. But heat can affect everyone, sometimes in less obvious ways. Tarter points to mailed prescriptions as one example. Medications shipped in un-air-conditioned delivery trucks may be exposed to temperatures high enough to reduce their effectiveness, potentially compromising treatment without patients realizing it.

Rising temperatures are also shifting the range of infectious diseases. Mosquito- and tick-borne illnesses are appearing in new regions. “Diseases like dengue fever, which were historically limited to tropical and subtropical areas, are now moving into parts of the United States as warming temperatures allow disease-carrying mosquitoes to thrive,” Tarter explains.

Beyond heat and infectious disease, air pollution from wildfire smoke and fossil fuel emissions remains one of the leading risk factors for both cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Extreme weather events such as floods, intense storms, droughts, and wildfires can strain public health systems, disrupt access to care, and threaten food and water security.

Understanding these interconnected risks and identifying interventions to reduce harm is the foundation of climate medicine. “We have to train people to connect the dots,” Tarter explains, “and then help them integrate this knowledge into their daily work.” That can be as simple as asking whether recent weather events have affected a patient’s health or home, or whether smoke or heat has limited their ability to work or exercise.

From there, clinicians can help patients think ahead. Do they have a plan for extreme heat days? Do they know where cooling centers are located, or how to stay safe if the power goes out? Are there environmental risks in their neighborhood, such as flooding or pollution, that could worsen existing health conditions? “This isn’t about adding more to a clinician’s workload,” Tarter says. “It’s about integrating climate awareness into the care they’re already providing.”

Tarter has also taken what she’s learned through the Diploma in Climate Medicine and applied it to the unique challenges of the outdoor community. Along with a group of experienced wilderness risk managers, she helped develop a Climate Resilience Plan to support organizations as they plan for a future shaped by increasing heat, smoke, and extreme weather. “From updating risk assessments to building contingency plans and improving informed consent, programs already have many of the tools they need,” she says.

Ultimately, Tarter says, climate medicine provides a practical framework for building resilience and reducing harm across healthcare, outdoor programs, and communities alike. Through the Diploma in Climate Medicine, healthcare professionals gain the knowledge and tools to anticipate climate-related health risks, integrate prevention into routine care, and advocate for policies that protect both people and the environments they depend on.

“It’s not really about climate change because that’s already here,” Tarter explains. “It’s about acknowledging that things have changed and evolving how we care for ourselves and our communities in ways that reduce harm and protect the health of the next generation.”