Q&A: Why climate-health training is vital for health workers

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Climate-health training for health workers in Africa can strengthen climate adaptation and resilience. In an interview, Caroline Muthoni, a climate-health expert, explains the impact of the recently launched Africa Climate and Health Responders Course and why such capacity building matters in Africa.

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Caroline Muthoni is a Research Coordinator at The Aga Khan University. Working at the Institute for Human Development, Caroline handles climate change and health work including being part of the Climate Health African Network for Collaboration and Engagement (CHANCE) steering committee. Her work revolves around research on climate change and health, supporting evidence-based climate and health policy making; building networks for collaboration among stakeholders in Africa; and facilitating climate and health knowledge exchange and learning.

What is your role in implementing the Africa Climate and Health Responders Course?

I sit in the steering committee for the CHANCE Network. When the Africa Responders Course was starting, they reached out to the CHANCE Network for collaboration, together with other regional organizations. Since we have been in the climate-health space since 2021, we know a number of stakeholders. We all worked with the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education to generate a list of potential lecturers or instructors, and we also used our platform to share the opportunity with our members. Together with other partners in the course, we were able to reach as many health workers across the continent as possible.

From your perspective, how is climate change affecting the quality of healthcare in Africa?

Sometimes it’s hard to make the connection between climate change and health because it’s often seen as an environmental issue, not a health one. Sectors like environment, agriculture, transport and water have traditionally dominated this space.

We’ve been working to create awareness and show that health must be at the heart of climate change. Climate change affects healthcare quality in many ways. For instance, during extreme weather events, disease burdens rise. Flooding increases waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Drought brings malnutrition, while heatwaves cause heat stress and dehydration.

Access to healthcare is also disrupted for both patients and providers. As the world moves towards two degrees of global warming, beyond the 1.5°C threshold in the Paris Agreement, we’ll face even greater risks and healthcare access will be disrupted. Now is the time to build more resilient health systems that can withstand these changes and to make them environmentally sustainable so they don’t contribute further to the problem.

In Kenya, for example, heavy rains often cause power outages that directly affect healthcare. There have been cases of newborn deaths linked to power failures. Infrastructure damage from floods also forces rural health facilities to close. These are direct examples of how climate change undermines healthcare quality across Africa.

Health professionals are at the frontline of these impacts. Why do you think it’s important for them to understand climate change?

Health workers are at the forefront of responding to weather-related health emergencies, so they’re best placed to understand and address the impacts of climate change. However, because they’re also affected by these challenges, it becomes a double burden.

If we build their capacity and make health systems more resilient, they’ll be better positioned to conduct disease surveillance and control. They’re the first to observe and diagnose, which means they can track shifting disease patterns caused by climate change, such as malaria and cholera.

Ground-level data from health workers is essential for setting up early-warning systems for outbreaks and heatwaves. This applies not only to doctors and nurses but also to community health promoters. They should be equipped with skills to respond, predict, diagnose and educate communities on climate-related health risks.

They can also promote measures to reduce heat exposure, for instance, since extreme heat has been shown to cause miscarriages and stillbirths. Health workers are trusted messengers. Just as they once led public health campaigns around HIV prevention, they can now help communities adapt to climate-related health threats.

Let’s talk about the Africa Climate and Health Responders Course. What does it cover, and how does it help close the skills gap you’ve described?

The training was a great first step. It covered how climate change affects health across different areas: water, sanitation, hygiene and even mental health. It was a broad and well-structured course.

It also registered huge interest: over 7,000 people enrolled, 90% of them Africans and around 1,300 completed the course. It showed that regional training like this is feasible and effective. Participants reported greater confidence, knowledge and communication skills around climate and health.

Virtual training offers a low-cost way to raise awareness among healthcare workers across the region. While there’s still a major skills gap, we are improving. Health workers are starting to recognise the connection between climate change and health and they’re asking how to acquire the right skills to respond.

Structured training and institutional support are key. Some African countries are already making progress. In Malawi, climate modules have been added to the training of health surveillance assistants. In Kenya, policymakers have trained people within the health sector to cascade knowledge to facility staff.

Some universities, Aga Khan among them, are incorporating climate change into medical training. Policy momentum is growing too: Kenya Climate Change and Health Strategy (2024–2029) in October 2025, which include capacity building for healthcare providers as a priority.

Do you think climate education should be integrated into all medical and health-related training programmes?

Yes, I think that’s one of the best strategies. While we target professionals already working in facilities, we must also prepare future health workers by integrating climate change into medical and health education.

One approach is through accreditation. In Kenya, for instance, the Commission for University Education could require all accredited medical, public health and related courses to include environmental and climate components. Without them, programmes wouldn’t be approved.

There’s also growing student interest. Learners themselves can advocate for these subjects to be taught. Climate and health content can become part of continuous professional development (CPD) for doctors and health workers. This can encourage educators to integrate it systematically.

From my own experience, during my master’s in Global Health, I saw how transformative this exposure can be. Many students had never considered climate change from a health perspective until then. Integrating these topics in all health courses works and we must move toward that goal.

How can we make climate-health training more available, especially for those who can’t afford to pay?

The Africa Climate and Health Responders Course was free and accessible to all, which was fantastic. Other free courses also exist, but accessibility must go beyond cost.

Funding is critical. Donors supporting climate and health research or implementation should also invest in training and capacity building. Policy buy-in, especially from the education sector, is also essential. Health ministries understand the issue, but education ministries need to embed it earlier, even in primary schools.

Another challenge is faculty capacity. When we were identifying course instructors, we realised there’s a shortage of lecturers who can teach this material. Strengthening faculty skills in universities will help ensure accurate, up-to-date climate-health education. That would make training far more accessible across institutions.

As we work towards climate adaptation, we must not leave health workers behind. Researchers and implementers may be leading now, but we need to bring the people closest to patients along. They need a practical understanding of climate risks and adaptation strategies they can apply in their own facilities. Progress is happening, but there’s still so much more we can do to achieve better outcomes for health and climate resilience in Africa.