What are the key competencies for teaching and learning Sustainable Health?
On October 2nd, the CESH reference group—comprising researchers, students, teachers, and representatives from faculty leadership—met to discuss key competencies for sustainable health. The group's discussion was framed around building on the competencies for sustainable development established by UNESCO:
“…an interplay of knowledge, capacities, and skills, motives and affective dispositions. Competencies cannot be taught, but have to be developed by the learners themselves. They are acquired during action, on the basis of experience and reflection (UNESCO, 2015; Weinert, 2001).”
Concept of sustainable health
The Centre defines sustainable health as: a multisectoral area for study, research and practice towards improving health and well-being for all, while staying within planetary boundaries. This view builds on the definition given in the Brundtland commission and the report Our Common Future. See also the research article: Sustainable health—a call to action
"Last year, the Centre launched the definition of sustainable health and now we need to start exploring what this means for education; what do students need to be able to do, know, and with what mindset, to work effectively to achieve sustainable health?"
- Karin Båge, Project developer
Example of competences for Sustainable Development
UNESCO | Karolinska Institutet |
|
|
Discussion highlights
Discussion 1. What are the key competences in sustainable health that students need to work effectively for sustainable health?
Key Competencies for Sustainable Health: Students need to develop collaborative and strategic skills, with an understanding of power structures and politics in various contexts. This includes the ability to communicate across disciplinary boundaries and analyse how power asymmetries affect health outcomes.
Competencies to Include:
- Critical and integrated problem-solving
- Self-awareness and reflexivity
- Advocacy and outreach to engage local communities
Challenges and Suggestions:
- Integrate sustainable health into all educational programs without increasing course loads.
- Educate teachers and use workshops to disseminate knowledge.
- Create a committee for sustainable health and develop elective courses for students.
Measuring Competencies: Methods are needed to assess these competencies, which may vary depending on cultural contexts. Students should be encouraged to reflect on their knowledge gaps and work in groups to understand different perspectives.
Overall Goals: The development of competencies for sustainable health must be tailored to economic and societal factors and should be an integral part of all educational programs, including those at the master’s and doctoral levels.
Discussion 2. What kind of competences do educators need to provide this education and learning activities to the students?
Key Competencies for Educators in Sustainable Health:
- Constructive Assessment: Develop clear methods for assessing skills and attitudes, utilizing constructive alignment to enhance educational activities.
- Diverse Learning Tools: Create a toolbox of varied teaching activities suited for different learner levels, including resources that facilitate experiential learning.
- Focus Beyond Knowledge: Shift from knowledge-based teaching to fostering practical skills, encouraging engagement with communities and real-world challenges.
- Exposure to Experiences: Design experiences that promote critical thinking and systems thinking and develop case scenarios that contextualize sustainable health.
- Simplified Guidance for Educators: Provide straightforward teaching guides that help educators understand and implement competencies effectively.
- Active Feedback and Formative Assessment: Regularly check in with students to gauge understanding and adjust teaching methods, accordingly, fostering student-centred learning.
- Integration of Sustainable Health: Assign roles within programs for integrating sustainable health competencies and encourage all lecturers to link topics to sustainable health where possible.
- Emotional Engagement: Address students’ emotions related to planetary issues to build confidence and motivation, sharing personal experiences and successful examples of competencies in action.
- Cross-Disciplinary Approach: Extend sustainable health concepts beyond health-specific fields to include disciplines like architecture.
- Continuous Improvement: Revise curricula periodically to incorporate new developments in sustainable health and ensure ongoing educator engagement.
"Today we got a lot of interesting input, but we still need to dig deeper and include more voices, for example, it would be interesting to hear from future employers what they think competencies for sustainable health are”
- Irene Wanyana, Project manager
Summary and conclusion
Sustainable health education requires a blend of competencies that empower individuals to enhance health outcomes while considering environmental sustainability. Integrating sustainable health into courses across various disciplines involves a holistic and systems-thinking approach. The reference group highlighted the need to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential for teaching sustainable health, identifying the competencies and skills lecturers must possess to provide relevant education.
To facilitate this, accessible information can be provided through a one-page overview, a dedicated website, or a databank for easy access to resources. Establishing concept-specific benchmarks tailored to different contexts is crucial to support educators and students from multiple perspectives. Direct engagement with students, alongside expert guidelines on key content, assessment methods, and overall direction, is essential to ensure the effective integration of sustainable health education.
Tips and resources
- Read about the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health | CESH
- Watch the film About CESH
- Discover the Tools for Action
- Listen to the recorded Global conversation on Sustainable Health
- Read Pre–post evaluation of the emotions and motivations for transformative action of medical students in Germany after two different planetary health educational interventions - The Lancet Planetary Health
What is the ePlanet project?
The aim of the Erasmus+ funded ePlanet project is to provide educational resources on planetary health that can easily be integrated in several educational contexts or formats. The central element of the project is the ePlanet game, an introduction to planetary health topics. In this educational game, players are presented with a node network, depicting different planetary health challenges organized around the topics of food, air pollution and heat, infectious diseases, and cross-cutting planetary health issues.