sustainable healthcare media analysis
Environmental Health News

Code Green: Burnout, climate change and equity

A look at the year in sustainable healthcare coverage shows public moving beyond PPE and Covid.

Welcome to summer. Let's step back and take in a year's worth of sustainable healthcare coverage in one sweep.


The above graph shows the 1,553 stories, each represented by a dot, published since last June that our software picked up.

  • X-axis: Number of media outlets publishing the story
  • Y-axis: Count of social media posts sharing that story
  • Colors represent thematic clusters.

Note that both axes are logarithmic.

Focus this week on the upper right quadrant: Stories that proved popular by media editors and social media users alike.

  • They got seen and shared, and they drove conversations.

Three main themes dominated the most widely read and shared stories:

  1. Staff burnout & shortages (red dots)
  2. Climate change (purple)
  3. Healthcare inequity (teal)

Stay abreast of sustainable healthcare coverage

Get our Code Green newsletter in your inbox - FREE!

A bi-weekly newsletter for people who care about reimagining health care, sustainably.
Better than coffee.

Staff burnout & climate change

sustainable healthcare coverage climate change

The big red dot, with some 27,000 media shares, is a Texas Tribune article from August about Texas' acute healthcare worker shortage amid staff burnout and a Covid-19 surge. It wasn't just Texas: Quite a few red dots representing stories focused on staffing sit in this most popular quadrant.

What we find encouraging is the number of purple dots in that quadrant, representing stories focused on climate change – such as this piece from ABC News national correspondent Chris Conte on doctors incorporating climate change into their practices.

It's going to become a more frequent topic for healthcare globally, with reports just this week of more than 1,000 people hospitalized in Iraq as dust storms ravaged the Middle East.

Inequity in healthcare

healthcare equity coverage

Equally heartening is the plethora of teal in the graph's upper quadrant. Each of those represents a story on inequity in health care, such as this Stateline piece from September on how pandemic health inequities highlight the need for better obesity prevention.

Stay with us on that last point, as Environmental Health Sciences will be hosting a conference this fall on obesogens – hormone hijacking compounds in medical and consumer products that alter our body chemistry and contribute to obesity.

Overall, we'd say the coverage trend suggests the media and public are moving on from the intense focus on PPE and Covid we've seen in the healthcare sustainability space since the pandemic hit.

environmental justice

LISTEN: Robbie Parks on why hurricanes are getting deadlier

"In places where there are high minority populations they bear, by far, the most burden of deaths from tropical cyclones."

Dr. Robbie Parks joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast for a bonus episode to discuss how hurricanes have become deadlier in recent years and how we can better protect vulnerable communities.

Keep reading...Show less
Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.
wind energy climate inflation reduction act
Image by Peter Dargatz from Pixabay

The Inflation Reduction Act is reducing U.S. reliance on China

Don’t get fooled by a common myth. The reality: The landmark IRA includes provisions to incentivize domestic clean energy manufacturing and reduce U.S. dependence on China.
uaw strike electric vehicles energy
Image by LEEROY Agency from Pixabay

What the UAW strike means for EVs

The UAW is seeking better pay and benefits — and an uncertain transition to electric vehicles is underpinning a lot of their concerns.

Extreme plankton bloom creates marine 'dead zone' off eastern Thailand

Marine scientists say some areas in the Gulf of Thailand have more than 10 times the normal amount of plankton, turning the water a bright green and killing off marine life.

electric vehicles climate health
Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay

Electrifying a fraction of vehicles in the lower Great Lakes could save over a thousand lives annually, studies suggest

New research reveals that even a “mid-transition” to electrified transportation could have outsized health and economic benefits for Black and Latino residents.
climate heat map united states
Photo by Nico Smit on Unsplash

How maps can protect children from extreme heat

Heatwaves claim tens of thousands of lives each year. Now a US mapping project is revealing those most at risk so they can get the help they need.

climate energy new mexico protection
Photo by Joonyeop Baek on Unsplash

BLM wants to protect the Placitas area from oil and gas extraction

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland wants to withdraw nearly 4,213 acres of public lands from oil and gas extraction for 50 years “to protect, preserve, and promote the scenic integrity, cultural importance, recreational values, and wildlife habitat connectivity within the Placitas area,” according to the six-page draft proposal.

From our Newsroom
children nature

Opinion: When kids feel the magic of nature, they will want to protect it

Improving our quality of life starts with the simple of act of getting kids outdoors.

birds climate change

In the Gulf of Maine, scientists race to save seabirds threatened by climate change

“I could see that, if successful, the methods developed could likely help these species."

fracking economics

Appalachia’s fracking counties are shedding jobs and residents: Study

The 22 counties that produce 90% of Appalachian natural gas lost a combined 10,339 jobs between 2008 and 2021.

Marathon Petroleum y una ciudad de Texas muestran una  potencial crisis de comunicaciones sobre sustancias químicas

Marathon Petroleum y una ciudad de Texas muestran una potencial crisis de comunicaciones sobre sustancias químicas

En los últimos tres años, Marathon ha violado repetidamente la ley de Aire Limpio y tuvo tres emergencias en el semestre de febrero a julio de 2023.

WATCH: How Marathon Petroleum and one Texas city show the potential for a chemical communication crisis

WATCH: How Marathon Petroleum and one Texas city show the potential for a chemical communication crisis

Marathon in Texas City has repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act and had three emergencies in the span of a six month period.

air pollution heart attack

ER visits for heart problems plummeted after Pittsburgh coal processor shut down

Levels of one highly-toxic pollutant fell by 90% and ER visits for heart problems decreased by 42% immediately after the shutdown.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.