Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies

Building a Leadership Culture for Environmental Health in a Nurse-Led Clinic

Shanda L Demorest

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Teddie M Potter

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Jane Anderson

MHealth Nurse Practitioners Clinic

Kylee Funk

MHealth Nurse Practitioners Clinic

Michelle Napral

MHealth Nurse Practitioners Clinic

Austin Wagner

Augsburg College

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/ijps.v4i3.174

Keywords: leadership, partnership, nurse-led, environmental sustainability, climate change

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Abstract

Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21^st century (Costello et al., 2009). Temperature shifts caused by greenhouse gases have negative health impacts such as worsening of chronic diseases and increases in vector-borne diseases (American Public Health Association, 2016), which nurses are ethically responsible to address (American Nurses Association, 2015). At an interdisciplinary nurse-led clinic, staff were not prepared to assist patients in building resiliency related to the health impacts of climate change or to implement environmental sustainability in their workplace. Based on principles of partnership-based healthcare (Eisler & Potter, 2014), this project included Climate Conversations - sharing stories, values, and knowledge about climate change – (Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light, 2010) and evidence-based transformational leadership. The Nurses’ Environmental Awareness Tool (Schenk et al., 2015) was used to survey staff before and after they participated in behavioral interventions to incorporate environmental sustainability at their workplace. Compared to baseline, staffs’ knowledge of environmental sustainability increased significantly (pp