Greening up sexual health services

Climate change has a negative impact on sexual and reproductive health worldwide, through mechanisms such as healthcare disruption, food insecurity leading to sex work and child marriage, and increased gender-based violence following extreme weather events.1 Sexual and reproductive healthcare has an important role to play in building climate resilience, for example, through facilitating pregnancy spacing, but healthcare systems also contribute significantly to global emissions.2 Our integrated sexual health, contraception and HIV department formed a ‘green team’ aiming to increase environmental sustainability within the department, raise awareness of the impact of climate change on health and share good practice. Group membership is multidisciplinary, including a patient representative. We launched in July 2021 during our Trust’s ‘environment week’ with a pledge campaign for staff to make a lifestyle change to benefit the planet. Twenty-seven people made a total of 311 pledges, with the most popular being ‘I’ll...
Source: Sexually Transmitted Infections - Category: Sexual Medicine Authors: Tags: PostScript Source Type: research