O-29 The Bahamas Climate Change and Health Survey - Pathways to Recovery and Resilience

Methods: The KAP Survey was approved as an electronic based convenient sampling tool by the Medical Research Oversight Ethics Committe in The Bahamas. A convenient national sample between 18-65 yrs self selected to participate in the survey via targeted email marketing to healthcare professionals, environmental officers and civil society or via a national text messaging to the general population between October -November 2022. Persons were able to decline if they were not interested. Those who were interested were directed to The Bahamas KAP site to complete the survey.

Results: Data from 3,505 respondents were analyzed of which 86% were general public (gp), 8.67% were healthcare professionals(hp) and 5.24% represented evironmental officers and civil society. Most respondents had heard about climate change (85.6%) and global warming (85.5%). Nearly 80% agreed that climate change was real and 73.3% thought that it was happening now. Among the general public and health professionals, less knew of climate resilient health systems (gp:32.6%vs hp:34.5%) and SMART/ green healthcare facilities (gp:39.9% vs hp40.5%). As to the cause of climate change, less than 2 of every 5 persons (36.6%) thought it was due mostly or entirely to human activities, with percentages only slightly higher for environmental workers and health professionals (44.0% and 43.1% respectively). However, just a quarter (24.9%) did not acknowledge the human contribution to climate change. For protection against illness due to climate change, the most frequently mentioned measures were education (47.9%), reducing air pollution (45.2%) and monitoring diseases that occur (41.2%) Over half of the respondents (56.9%), thought that it is everyone’s responsibility to do something about climate change. A similar proportion (56.1%) want to do something to combat climate change but slightly less (46.9%) thought that they could do something, and even less (31.9%) have attempted to do so.

Conclusion: The survey indicated that although some people believe climate change is real their knowledge about the cause and their efficacy about how to address it was lacking. Therefore, there is a need for a national educational campaign to increase knowledge and understanding of climate change and its causes so as to increase persons awareness of their personal contribution and enhance their personal protection against the adverse effects of climate change. As for healthcare professionals; courses on climate change and health and on emergency planning and response be part of the training of all health care workers. Also, that repeated electronic surveys should be utilized to monitor the progress in educational level and practice of climate change interventions.