Puerto Rican Public Health Graduate Students' Knowledge Regarding Global Warming and Climate Change: Are We Giving Global Warming and Climate Change the Right Place?

Global warming (GW) has consequences on communities' health leading to complex health issues. In fact GW and climate change (CC) contributes to higher health inequities where those more poor will suffer the greatest impact. This poses to public health practitioners (PHP) a health issue where poverty alleviation, social justice and ethics need to be considered. Literature had described that the knowledge PHP possess on GW & CC impacts the approach in national and global climate policies developed. This study explores the knowledge of public health students (PHS) on GW & CC. Univariate, bivariate and logistic/lineal regression analysis were performed using SPSS (version 19.0). Representation of all programs from the GSPH was obtained (n= 201), 77.8% were females. PHS age ranged 21 – 56 years old and 52% had taken environmental health courses (EHC). 66.2% had an inadequate knowledge regarding GW & CC (scale cronbach á = .956). No significant association was observed between independent variables and PHS's knowledge, including having approved EHC (p > 0.05). Logistic regression shows self-efficacy levels could predict higher knowledge on GW & CC among PHS. Other data regarding PHS on attitudes also reveal a call for action regarding the GW&CC that has been impacted by the participant low knowledge. In conclusion, participants had low knowledge regarding GW & CC which could not be attributed to any of their social attributes including educational level. A need for inclusion of more robust discussion on GW & CC could increase awareness on its impact in the population's health. PHP lack of knowledge regarding the effects of GW & CC on health can undermine significant improvements obtained on national and global health issues observed in the past decades.