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Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China
This study aimed to measure the knowledge and perceptions of medical, public health, and nursing students about climate change and its impacts, and to identify associations between the knowledge and perceptions. Data were from a nationwide cross-sectional survey of 1387 students sampled in five diff...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313669/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30486282 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122650 |
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author | Yang, Lianping Liao, Wenmin Liu, Chaojie Zhang, Na Zhong, Shuang Huang, Cunrui |
author_facet | Yang, Lianping Liao, Wenmin Liu, Chaojie Zhang, Na Zhong, Shuang Huang, Cunrui |
author_sort | Yang, Lianping |
collection | PubMed |
description | This study aimed to measure the knowledge and perceptions of medical, public health, and nursing students about climate change and its impacts, and to identify associations between the knowledge and perceptions. Data were from a nationwide cross-sectional survey of 1387 students sampled in five different regional universities in China (April–May 2017). The knowledge and perceptions of the participants were collected by self-administered questionnaires. We found that most respondents believed that climate change is generally “bad” (83%) and bad for human health (88%), while 67% believed that climate change is controllable. The vast majority of respondents acknowledged illness conditions resulting from poor air quality (95%), heat stress (93%), and extreme weather events (91%) as potential impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, only 39% recognized malnutrition as a consequence of food deprivation resulting from climate change. Around 58% of respondents could correctly identify the causes of climate change. The knowledge of the causes of climate change was not associated with the ability to recognize the health consequences of climate change. However, the knowledge of causes of climate change was a significant predictor of increased awareness of the negative impacts of climate change between the medical and nursing students, although this was not the case among their public health counterparts. Poor knowledge about the causes of climate change is evident among students in China. They are able to recognize the direct links between weather events and health, but less likely to understand the consequences involving complicated pathways. Research and training into the underlying mechanisms of health impacts of climate change needs to be strengthened. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6313669 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-63136692019-06-17 Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China Yang, Lianping Liao, Wenmin Liu, Chaojie Zhang, Na Zhong, Shuang Huang, Cunrui Int J Environ Res Public Health Article This study aimed to measure the knowledge and perceptions of medical, public health, and nursing students about climate change and its impacts, and to identify associations between the knowledge and perceptions. Data were from a nationwide cross-sectional survey of 1387 students sampled in five different regional universities in China (April–May 2017). The knowledge and perceptions of the participants were collected by self-administered questionnaires. We found that most respondents believed that climate change is generally “bad” (83%) and bad for human health (88%), while 67% believed that climate change is controllable. The vast majority of respondents acknowledged illness conditions resulting from poor air quality (95%), heat stress (93%), and extreme weather events (91%) as potential impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, only 39% recognized malnutrition as a consequence of food deprivation resulting from climate change. Around 58% of respondents could correctly identify the causes of climate change. The knowledge of the causes of climate change was not associated with the ability to recognize the health consequences of climate change. However, the knowledge of causes of climate change was a significant predictor of increased awareness of the negative impacts of climate change between the medical and nursing students, although this was not the case among their public health counterparts. Poor knowledge about the causes of climate change is evident among students in China. They are able to recognize the direct links between weather events and health, but less likely to understand the consequences involving complicated pathways. Research and training into the underlying mechanisms of health impacts of climate change needs to be strengthened. MDPI 2018-11-26 2018-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6313669/ /pubmed/30486282 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122650 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Yang, Lianping Liao, Wenmin Liu, Chaojie Zhang, Na Zhong, Shuang Huang, Cunrui Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China |
title | Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China |
title_full | Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China |
title_fullStr | Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China |
title_full_unstemmed | Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China |
title_short | Associations between Knowledge of the Causes and Perceived Impacts of Climate Change: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Medical, Public Health and Nursing Students in Universities in China |
title_sort | associations between knowledge of the causes and perceived impacts of climate change: a cross-sectional survey of medical, public health and nursing students in universities in china |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313669/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30486282 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122650 |
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