OCAREER
Certificate Program

Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania developed OCAREER, a virtual certificate program designed to assist healthcare professionals in assessing, identifying, and addressing how climate change is impacting health. 

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What is OCAREER?

OCAREER is a tangible approach for examining the links between climate and health.

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The OCAREER mnemonic stands for: Occupation; Condition; Activities; Residence; Environment; Education; and Resources.

Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania (PSR PA)’s OCAREER certificate is an outgrowth of three gaps we identified.

First, many practitioners are concerned about climate change as it relates to health, but they do not feel that they have the tools or the knowledge necessary to help inform the people they work with.

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Second, training of health practitioners share important information but do not provide skill building exercises.

Lastly, health practitioners often use mnemonics such as PET-MAC to quickly assess chest pain and we modeled OCAREER similarly. We created this new mnemonic to help practitioners ask the people they work with how climate change is influencing their health, including the social determinants of health (SOD). To make that connection, we will suggest ICD-10 Codes to help secondarily code visits reflecting SOD, often caused by climate change. By secondarily coding visits, data can be collected to assess how climate is affecting the SOD and changing people’s health.

Why a certificate?

A certificate demonstrates that the learner has mastered the material presented to them. We hope this fosters the integration of climate issues into everyday work for health practitioners and to serve as role models in their institutions about incorporating climate into practices.

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To receive the certificate, one assignment with two parts will need to be completed:

1. the development of an infographic;

2. testing that infographic with its intended audience (at least 3 people/groups) and writing up a one-page report on these tests.

How does the certificate work?

For each letter of OCAREER, there is a module associated with that topic, culminating with the resource module that contains references, resources, and referrals. Before we begin the mnemonic modules, there is an introductory module to provide the science of climate change, for a total of eight modules. In addition to the slide deck, there will be one publication to read for each module and a related YouTube
video.

At the end of four of the modules, a knowledge check will assess your strengths in these modules. These checks will cover both the slide deck and the publication. The final assignment will be to develop an infographic and to test it with at least three people of the intended audience.

You have three months to complete the modules, the knowledge checks, and the assignment.

Please complete the form above to gain access to OCAREER modules and further instructions.