Incorporating environmental elements into routine screenings

Shreya Doshi, MBBS, FAAP, a board-certified pediatrician and an infectious disease fellow at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC, explained how routine health screenings provide a perfect opportunity to engage parents regarding environmental awareness.

"Parents have a lot of faith in us as providers because we provide good, quality care to our patients and we truly care about the health of our children," Doshi said in the interview. "I think that we need to start thinking that the health of the planet is equal to the health of our children, because if we have a healthy planet, only then can we have healthy children."

Doshi said advocacy can be incorporated at well visits or routine screenings.

"It's always tricky because there's so many things to talk about [at a visit], we have many checklists and questionnaires, but if we can spend that extra minute or so to talk about some of the things by which families and teenagers can reduce their carbon footprint and mitigate the climate crisis, that would be good," said Doshi.