Planetary health is focused on the interconnectedness of the health of humans, other species, and the physical environment. Disruption of the Earth's natural ecosystems due to human overconsumption; disregard for sustainable practices; and the domination of other humans, species, and natural systems has led to an urgent moment in which humans must act to preserve these ecosystems, which support life on this planet. Restoring planetary health requires new directions for nursing. The pragmatic implications for nursing research, education, advocacy, and practice are explored in this article.

Defining Climate Justice in Nursing for Public and Planetary Health, an article from American Journal of Public Health, Vol 112 Issue S3

Personal and planetary environmental justice has become a driving force for innovation in nursing science. The purpose of our Critical Environmental Justice Nursing for Planetary Health Framework is to guide this work by applying critical theory to the way we conceptualize the root causes of environmental injustices. The framework calls for more ethical responses to injustices and challenges the biohierarchical belief that nonmales, non-Whites, and nonhumans are lesser beings that can be made profitable. This response requires nurse leaders who are well prepared in the science and practice of planetary health and the ontologies and epistemologies of regeneration and transformation.

Aim: To describe nurses' and community‐based organization representatives' collaborative strategies for advancing climate justice with communities. Design: This study used a descriptive, qualitative research design. Methods: Data were gathered from August 2022 to February 2023 with nurses ( n = 8) and their community partners ( n = 5) in the United States. Community partners were representatives of community‐based organizations. Photovoice provided greater context for the thematic analysis of collaborative strategies discussed in semi‐structured interviews. Results: Nurse participants worked in academic or non‐profit settings. Nurse‐community partnerships addressed corporate pollution and promoted Indigenous sovereignty and multispecies justice. Themes included investigating disease and health events, identifying at‐risk populations and connecting them with resources, providing health teaching and counseling, organizing communities and coalitions, and advocating for policy development and enforcement. Self‐care supported resilience and well‐being in the long struggle for climate justice. Conclusion: Findings from this study indicated that nurses and their community partners strategize to transition communities away from systems of extraction towards local and regenerative systems that support resilience. Nurses and their community partners recognized the importance of applying an expansive understanding of climate justice, including intersections of pollution and multispecies justice, to promoting planetary health. Implications for the profession: Findings from this study support nurse‐community collaboration in policy work to advance planetary health. This study also supports nurses' collective action with their community partners to address the effects of white supremacy and colonization. Future research is needed to evaluate the outcomes of nurse‐community partnerships for planetary health. Impact: Nurses have called for action on climate justice; however, evidence of effective nursing strategies that advance climate justice is sparse. This study is the first to describe the collaborative strategies nurses implement with community partners to support the transition from injustice to justice in communities most burdened by climate change and industrial pollution.

The current definition of planetary health has been criticized for having a hierarchical anthropocentric focus that values the importance of human health outcomes over other beings in the biosphere. Kincentricity is a concept from Indigenous scholarship that supports an obligation to live in harmony with all kin. A paradigm shift from the anthropocentric to the kincentric would align with health professions such as nursing, which recognizes human beings ‘health as emerging from the environment and integral with one's spiritual nature. In 2020 the Planetary Health Alliance developed a draft Planetary Health Education Framework to guide education and practice. To help align the framework with Indigenous Knowledge Systems, a rapid evidence review on kincentric approaches to planetary health education was conducted across multiple databases. No studies included approaches that were explicitly kincentric. Three articles explored approaches that were implicitly aligned with kincentricity. Openness to traditional Indigenous perspectives allowed educators and students to gain understanding of their interconnection within nature. The paucity of evidence for effective kincentric approaches in education demonstrates how research has privileged the anthropocentric perspective. Further knowledge development of kincentric approaches in research and education could lead to transformational practices that advance planetary health.