We need to rapidly detect and respond to public rumours, perceptions, attitudes and behaviours around COVID-19 and control measures. The creation of an interactive platform and dashboard to provide real-time alerts of rumours and concerns about coronavirus spreading globally would enable public health officials and relevant stakeholders to respond rapidly with a proactive and engaging narrative that can mitigate misinformation.

Purpose: General practitioners (GPs) could play a role in mitigating climate change by raising awareness of its impact on human health and implementing changes to improve population health and decreasing environmental footprints. The aim of this study was to assess GPs’ knowledge and perspectives about the health impacts of climate change. Method: A questionnaire was sent to 1972 GPs in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Knowledge of the impact of environmental degradations and climate change on health and willingness to address climate change with patients, to be exemplary and to act as role models were surveyed as well as demographic characteristics of GPs. Results: Respondents (N = 497) expressed a high level of self-reported knowledge regarding climate change, although it was lower for more specific topics, such as planetary health or health–environment co-benefits. Participants mostly agreed that it is necessary to adapt clinical practice to the health impacts of climate change and that they have a role in providing information on climate change and its links to human health. Conclusion: Most of the GPs were concerned about environmental and climate degradation. However, this study revealed a gap between the willingness of GPs to integrate the impact of climate change on health into their clinical activities and their lack of overall knowledge and scientific evidence on effective interventions. A promising way forward may be to develop co-benefit interventions adapted to the clinical setting on diet, active mobility and connecting with nature.

The translation of science from research to real-world change is a central goal of public health. Communication has an essential role to play in provoking a response to climate change. It must first raise awareness, make people feel involved and ultimately motivate them to take action. The goal of this research is to understand how the information related to this issue is being addressed and disseminated to different audiences—public citizens, politicians and key climate change stakeholders. Initial results show that the scientific voice struggles to globally highlight this issue to a general audience and that messages that address the topic do not meet the challenges, going from a dramatic framing to a basic adaptation framing. Communication experts can help inform scientists and policy makers on how to best share information about climate change in an engaging and motivating way. This study gives an insight about the key role of the media and communications in addressing themes relating to climate change and transmitting information to the public in order to take action.

The adverse health impacts of climate change are increasing on a global level. However, knowledge about climate change and health is still unavailable to many global citizens, in particular on adaptation measures and co-benefits of health mitigation. Educational technologies, such as massive open online courses (MOOCs), may have a high potential for providing access to information about climate change links to health for a global audience. We developed three MOOCs addressing the link between climate change and health to take advantage of the methodology’s broad reach and accelerate knowledge dissemination on the nexus of climate change and health. The primary objective was to translate an existing face-to-face short course that only reached a few participants on climate change and health into globally accessible learning opportunities. In the following, we share and comment on our lessons learned with the three MOOCs, with a focus on global teaching in the realm of climate change and health. Overall, the three MOOCs attracted a global audience with diverse educational backgrounds, and a large number of participants from low-income countries. Our experience highlights that MOOCs may play a part in global capacity building, potentially for other health-related topics as well, as we have found that our MOOCs have attracted participants within low-resource contexts. MOOCs may be an effective method for teaching and training global students on health topics, in this case on the complex links and dynamics between climate change and health and may further act as an enabler for equitable access to quality education.

While until recently the small and isolated Zika outbreaks in Eastern Asia and Pacific islands had been overlooked, the large-scale outbreak that started in Brazil in 2015 and the increase of microcephaly cases in the same place and time made media headlines. Considered as harmless until recently, Zika has given rise to an important global crisis that poses not only health challenges but also environmental, economical, social, and ethical challenges for states and people around the world. The main objective of this paper is to review the recent Zika outbreak by covering a broad range of disciplines and their interactions. This paper synthetises experts’ interviews and reactions conducted during a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) entitled “In the footsteps of Zika…approaching the unknown.” It reviews knowledge and uncertainties around epidemiology, geographical dispersion of the virus and its vectors through globalization and climate change, and also its modes of transmission, diagnosis, symptoms, and treatment of the disease. The resulting societal and ethical issues in pregnancy and women of reproductive age were also addressed as well as the global outbreak alert and response network in international organizations and social media. This paper attempted to combine each piece of the jigsaw puzzle of the Zika phenomenon to complete the best realistic picture, while keeping in mind the balance between the interdisciplinary nature and international context of Zika and its unique characteristics.