Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education

Community Climate and Disaster First Aid in the Dominican Republic

Curso de Primeros Auxilios Comunitarios sobre el Clima y las Catástrofes en la Resiliencia Comunitaria

Building Capacity and Improving Everyday Climate and Health Resilience Among Community Members in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

About the Program

The increase in natural disasters, climate-related events, and extreme weather conditions have forced many communities across the Dominican Republic to adapt and strengthen their physical infrastructure, adjust policies and plans, and create new mechanisms for communities to better prepare and respond. Climate change and extreme weather also significantly impact community health. As with many communities across the Dominican Republic, residents of Cristo Rey, a working class neighborhood in the capital of Santo Domingo, are at risk of multiple acute and chronic infectious and non-communicable diseases that have become more severe as a result of increased hurricanes, flooding, food insecurity, and air pollution. 

In partnership with the Instituto de Medicina Tropical & Salud Global - Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), ProFamilia, Cruz Roja Dominicana, Hospital General de la Plaza de la Salud, and Alcaldía del Distrito Nacionalin Santo Domingo, the GCCHE designed and delivered two parallel programs 1) a train-the-trainer program and 2) a community training during July-August 2024.

Key goals

  1. Increase community knowledge of climate hazards, disaster response, and everyday first aid skills. 

  2. Empower women and at-risk youth with the skills and knowledge to increase individual resilience, and serve as a potential entry-point into a career in the health professions.

  3. Develop a local workforce that is knowledgeable about climate hazards and are able to effectively communicate information and skills to their fellow community members. 

  4. Equip local health providers with skills and curriculum to provide ongoing training and resources to increase community resilience and sustainability.

Train-the-trainer program

Through employing a train-the-trainer model, the initiative sought to increase the number of health professionals competent and capable of providing high quality and engaging climate and health education to community members in the DR. The trainers consisted of four clinical health professionals from Columbia Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and the trainers consisted of health professionals from UNIBE, ProFamilia, and Hospital General de la Plaza de la Salud. The CUIMC climate and health experts and GCCHE developed the initial course curriculum and content (slide decks, speaker notes, small group cases/activities) and through collaborative sessions, trained the DR professionals. The collaborative training sessions were structured to gradually build the local health professionals' knowledge and confidence. Over two months, April-May 2023, the trainers and trainees met weekly to review and discuss the course curriculum and materials, ensuring it was well-adapted to the local context. Based on feedback from the DR health professionals, the course was updated to include region-specific terminology and resources. 

This train-the-trainer course prepared six local healthcare professionals to be leaders in climate and health education specific to the DR while training youth, women, and local leaders to build cross-generational and gender-equitable resilience. 

Community First Aid Training

In this 2-day course (~16 hours), participants learned how they can protect themselves and their community from climate-related threats including: extreme heat, vector-borne disease, degraded water quality, air pollution and disasters. The course curriculum was based on GCCHE core competencies in climate and health for health professionals and was created in collaboration with the trainers and trainees. The training curriculum covered key issues in climate and health research and practice including:

  • climate change science

  • climate adaptation and resilience

  • health impacts of heat, air pollution, vector-borne illness, extreme weather events, disasters

  • climate impacts on community mental health

An array of collaborative learning activities sought to bring this material to life, infusing technical lessons with practical scenarios, concept mapping, lively discussion, and action plan development. As an optional add-on training, participants had the opportunity to enroll and receive a certificate for first aid skills from the International Red Cross. In total, over the course of the three offerings, 121 participants completed the full two day program.

Community First Aid Training Curriculum Overview

The two day course was developed around eight modules, each with their own set of learning objectives:

  • Module 1-2: Climate Change, Human Health and Community Resilience 

  • Module 3-4: Climate Change and Extreme Heat

  • Module 5: Climate Change and Degraded Air Quality

  • Module 6: Vector-borne Diseases

  • Module 7: Extreme Weather Events

  • Module 8: Community Mental Health

The course included eight lectures and eight associated collaborative learning activities with content and resources specific to the DR. Slides and printed workbooks were provided to each participant. 

Key Learnings

  • Community-Driven Engagement is Critical for Success: Both the train-the-trainers and first aid courses benefitted from regionally specific curriculum and the input of local experts at every step in the program development and implementation. While Cristo Rey and Santo Domingo health professionals and communities are on the front lines of impacts, they also occupy a critical position in the response to climate change, including climate mitigation and adaptation.

  • Pre-Existing Awareness Creates Opportunities for Deeper Learning: While baseline knowledge of climate change was high among participants, the program was able to build on this to enable advanced understanding of more complex topics—especially the health impacts of climate change that are often under-recognized.

  • The Train-the-Trainer Model Supports Local Capacity Building and Sustainability: Training local healthcare professionals as course faculty created immediate capacity within the Dominican Republic for ongoing climate and health education. This ensures that future iterations can be adaptable to evolving community needs.

This training series is part of the Columbia World Projects’ Building Climate Resilient Communities in the Dominican Republic initiative. Launched in 2021, this project aims to design and prototype community resilience centers across the Dominican Republic in an effort to build communities’ capacities to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. 

 

This series is supported by Columbia World Projects in partnership with the Columbia University Global Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education.