The 2022 Planetary Health Report Card expands internationally and into the Pharmacy and Nursing Professions

The Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC), now in its third year, is a student-driven, metric-based initiative to inspire planetary health and education for sustainable healthcare (ESH) in medical schools. There are metrics in five categories, which students complete with faculty support - curriculum, research, community outreach, student support and sustainability. 

The annual results, which were published on Earth Day, had 74 participating medical schools including expansion into Germany and Japan.  The results of all schools are collated in a Summary Report, which includes national grading tables, 15 recommendations with pertinent best current examples from different schools globally, and highlights PHRC-inspired success stories. 

This year sustainability in healthcare has been given even more emphasis, with new metrics included on the topic. Additionally, a new recommendation was added (number 8) which focused specifically on the inclusion of sustainable healthcare, in teaching and in practice.  The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare’s Sustainability Quality Improvement website is highlighted as a world-leading existing resource.

Staying close to home, 26 medicals school from the UK and 5 from Ireland participated this year. 23 of those had improved their score from last year and two were newly participating schools – Liverpool and Buckingham Medical Schools. Although slightly fewer schools took part compared with last year, it is encouraging to see so much progress and engagement at schools up and down the nation and to have two new schools involved. Keele University topped the UK table again this year with an even higher score, and was the only school to achieve an A grade. Unlike last year no school achieved an F grade overall and a special mention needs to be given to Leicester Medical School, where their grade increased from a D- to a C- with nearly double their previous percentage. Despite this optimism, there is still much more to do and nearly 80% of all schools are still scoring a C grade or below.

This year the PHRC has seen exciting developments, with the initiative being expanded into the pharmacy and nursing professions, with a pharmacy pilot report led by Ellie Self also published on Earth Day. Look out for the nursing pilot, which is aiming to be published on World Environment Day (5th June), alongside the medical school pilot that is currently underway in India.

To add to its impact, the PHRC has recently been acknowledged by international journals as a valuable tool, with a new publication in Lancet Planetary Health outlining its conception, development and progress. This is in addition to a BMJ piece published in January 2022. The leadership team has also published a literature review, led by student Trizzha Feliciano, outlining the evidence behind each of the report card’s metrics to help students advocate for change when communicating with their faculty.

Hannah Chase, Oxford Medical Student and PHRC co-director reports: 

“Results publication on Earth Day is always the most exciting moment, and the team puts in so much effort all year to get to this stage. It’s so uplifting to see progress across schools participating for the second time, and also engagement from new schools globally. We now have translations of the report card in German, French and Japanese so the potential for next year is vast! This year felt particularly big with many extra announcements – the pharmacy pilot, the Lancet Planetary Health publication, the launch of a new website, and Jim Lee (UK lead) put together a fabulous video telling our story (see here). Karly and I will be stepping down as co-directors this year, but are confident that incoming leads, Taylor Diedrich (University of Indiana) and Isabel Waters (Trinity College Dublin), will continue to grow the PHRC in new and powerful directions. Despite progress there is no doubt that there is still so much more to do. Karly and I will be staying on as Partnerships Chairs for 2022-23 to ensure sustainability of the initiative and help with this growth.”

To help medical schools improve their scores, CSH offers the following resources:

To get involved at your medical school, either contact the PHRC team at your own school (see the first page of your School’s individual report card) or contact the leadership team by email at phreportcard@gmail.com and we can answer any questions. You can also follow the PHRC on Twitter @phreportcard. 

The Planetary Health Report Card will be recruiting teams for next year towards the end of the summer and all students are welcome to join. It would be fantastic to get 100% of UK medical schools publishing next year! Please see https://phreportcard.org for full results from the last two years, for further information and resources related to the initiative.