The Work Ability Management (WAM) project focuses on addressing the issue of supporting the employment of (not only) aging workers through the concept of work ability. Finland began to deal with a systematic solution of this area with a considerable lead over other European countries already in the 1980s. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH), most importantly Professor Juhani Ilmarinen , participated on the solution. Individual factors of work ability were identified by FIOH experts, a method for measuring the work ability with the Work Ability Index was developed and this concept and its methods were spread especially in countries of Western Europe and many other countries all over the world. Central European countries work very little with this concept. The main aspect of the proposed project is social inclusion, the activities aim to support the work ability of employees and those currently unemployed, to eliminate age discrimination of aging employees, to promote gender equality and to seek new innovative approaches for maintaining their employability through education and counseling activities.The consortium that will implement the project consists of specialized workplaces that have been working on the concept of work ability for a long time: Blik op Werk from the Netherlands, Arbeit und Zukunft (Association of Labor and Future) from Germany, National Public Health Center (NKK) from Hungary, Slovak Association of Age Management and NGO Age Management from Czech Republic.The main objective of the proposed project is to bring together European expert organizations dealing with the issue of work ability and age management, to share their methods and to develop new products focusing on the individual needs of employed and unemployed people, including support through digital technologies. In Central European countries, there is a significant lack of trained adult education and career guidance professionals who are able to work with this concept and transfer this knowledge to other target groups, both employed and unemployed, in order to support their work ability in the long term. The main target group of the project is therefore trainers/ counselors/facilitators and other experts working in the field of adult education and career counseling.The proposed project activities support the achievement of the main objective with four major outputs. At the beginning of the project implementation, an electronic publication “Promoting Aging in the Workplace” will be developed. It will collect a description of methods, tools, examples of good practice, teaching methods, training programs and analytical tools of partner´s organizations in the field of work capacity support (used in social inclusion, prevention of social exclusion, lifelong learning support) in all participating countries. This handbook will be followed by the development of a methodology of work ability management for the target group of people employed or considering a change of profession as well as a methodology for managing work ability support for the target group of the unemployed. The fourth major output is the web-based digital coaching platform, which aims to map a person's potential, support learning and planning, and teach him/her to manage career change. This created platform will also be the part of the multiplication actions of pilot validation of newly developed methodologies for both employed and unemployed people, which will be implemented in all participating countries. A total of 30 pilot events for 80 people will be implemented. In order to support the development of all major outputs, two short-term training events for trainers/counselors/facilitators will be implemented, namely “Work Ability Support” in Germany for 13 lecturers and “Towards Successful Seniority” in the Czech Republic for 11 lecturers.Great emphasis will be put on dissemination activities with the aim of disseminating essential outputs at all levels. To support them, a final conference in the Czech Republic will be organized, to which representatives of important institutions dealing with this issue will be invited. All project outputs will be translated into all languages of the partner´s countries involved as well as in English and will be freely available to all interested parties on the websites of the promoter and partner organizations. In the area of long-term impact, the project aims to create the conditions for extending the concept of work ability and age management as a possible tool to address the aging population in working life, as has been done in Finland. This concept is still rarely used in Central European countries, and its effectiveness has been confirmed by many scientific studies.The project will last 36 months and its working language will be English.

"<< Background >>Several studies suggest the next decade will be critical for immediate action to avoid ""long-lasting and irreversible"" risks to humans and ecosystems. According to WHO predictions, due to climate change's multifactorial health impacts, 250,000 additional deaths are estimated per year between 2030 – 2050. Moreover, the increased incidence of the recent infectious and chronic diseases and new ones' emergence is also expected. Consequently, climate change presents unprecedented health risks and requires urgent attention to address them. In addition, reducing climate change-related health risks contributes to achieving Goal 3 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, namely to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages. There is a general agreement that improving climate awareness and the knowledge related to climate change's health impacts are essential among medical students. In 2015, in the Health Educators Climate Commitment declaration, representatives of 118 universities from 15 countries expressed their commitment to ensuring the conditions that help future health professionals acquire the knowledge needed to control the health risks of climate change. In 2018, the Standing Committee of European Doctors, an organisation of European national health organisations, made a professional case to EU decision-makers to add “knowledge on the impacts of climate change” in the training of health professionals. Currently, in the curricula of most medical schools, the health-related impacts of climate change represent a peripheral part: according to a 2019 survey, only 15% of the 2,817 medical schools globally have a course that teaches climate change and health topics. In contrast, there is a growing demand from medical students that medical schools integrate climate change and health issues into curricula. Considering climate-change medicine is expected to emerge as a specialised medical activity shortly, it is necessary to begin preparing current medical students as soon as possible.Climate change and all its impacts, including health impacts, are felt around the world. Consequently, it is a pressing challenge for all medical schools to tackle teaching on the health impacts of climate change. Clinicians accept that climate change increases health risks by placing extraordinary stresses on human health. People remain vulnerable to massive natural disasters that weaken individuals' and communities' resilience and adaptive capacity. Consequently, it is expected that the number of patients in national health systems will increase significantly due to the adverse effects of climate change.The CLIMATEMED project, with its learning material development and training design activities, can strengthen the medical universities' capacities to ensure up-to-date knowledge of how climate change can endanger human health and how physicians can deal with these novel health challenges.<< Objectives >>The purpose of the CLIMATEMED project is to: (1) create a new curriculum on climate change's health impacts for medical schools, with particular attention to the preventative measures of these impacts; (2) promote climate change and health as a horizontal priority in the curriculum of medical schools across Europe, ensuring academic staff are aware and trained in the concept, and thus securing its place at the forefront of medical school teaching; (3) support practising medical doctors to increase their knowledge of the health effects of climate change, with particular attention to the possible preventative measures against these impacts. By achieving all these objectives, we want to emphasise the relevance of climate change-related health challenges and promote the introduction of education on the health effects of climate change in as many medical schools in the European Union as possible. The English, Hungarian and Romanian language versions will contribute to achieving this goal. Due to the language similarities, the Serbian version will contribute to supporting this aim in the Balkan region of Europe. In addition, the CLIMATEMED project also aims to contribute to the attitude formation of current and future doctors. Doctors and other health professionals have a crucial role in shaping the public's attitudes to various health risks. We, therefore, aim to help professionals understand the importance of ever-changing environmental risk factors and communicate this to the public. All these tasks require medical students, as future doctors, to acquire adequate knowledge of the health impacts of climate change as part of their undergraduate training. To this end, medical school curricula should be developed to include climate change and its impact on health. It is also essential for practising doctors to be equipped with knowledge about climate change and health to improve the knowledge they have already acquired. The CLIMATEMED project intends to contribute to achieving these objectives.Current academic staff also play a significant role in ensuring climate change-related health problems are integrated into medical schools' curricula. Therefore, we also want to achieve an attitude change among professors and lecturers. To this end, we are developing a training programme that will help put climate change and health into the focus of academic staff's attention and thus into the medical curricula as a horizontal priority.All in all, our overall aim is to help fill the gap between the predicted demand for healthcare due to climate change and the current knowledge taught at medical school. In addition, developing our outputs will directly assist the universities participating in the CLIMATEMED project (UP, UCC, UMFST) to address this challenge and provide the material for all universities in the European Union and beyond to continue to deliver this much needed education in their medical curricula upon completion of CLIMATEMED.<< Implementation >>The project includes four main work phases: the first phase focuses on the preparatory work for the development of outputs. The activities include collecting data and information from members of the target groups on what they know about climate change and health issues, what their needs and suggestions are for integrating this issue into the curriculum of a medical school. The second phase will be devoted to the development of outputs such as (1) New curriculum and learning materials for medical students on climate change's health impacts – will be led by UCC with the inputs and review of UMFST, CHESS, NPHC and UP. This output will include a detailed curriculum for a lecture series, the modularised topics of the lectures, and associated learning materials. The Curriculum will be prepared in English and translated to Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian. The learning materials and documents and e-learning version will be created jointly. (2) Training and education materials for academic staff of medical schools – will be led by UMFST with the inputs and review of UP, CHESS, NPHC and UCC. This output will contain a detailed guideline of the education and training programme for academic staff, including an action plan, methodological support, training objectives, exercises, multimedia contents and assessment tools. All will be prepared in English and translated to Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian; the associated materials and e-learning materials version will be created jointly.(3) Teachers' guide on how climate change-related health topics can be integrated into the curricula – will be led by UP & UMFST with inputs and review by UCC, CHESS and NPHC. The Teacher' guide will include distance learning guidance for educators and will be prepared in English and translated to Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian; the associated materials and e-learning materials version will be created jointly. (4) Training materials for medical doctors' postgraduate learning programmes – will be led by CHESS & NPHC with inputs and review by UP, UMFST and UCC. The training materials for medical doctors' will be developed, including distance learning guidance for educators, and will be prepared in English and translated to Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian; the associated materials and e-learning materials version will be created jointly.In the third phase, the outputs will be piloted. The volunteers from the contributing universities and other universities will be involved in this pilot testing. At the end of this pilot phase, we will invite the volunteers to assess the outputs they were involved in. The fourth phase is the finalisation of the outputs based on the participant's opinions and evaluations. After that comes the development of e-learning materials.In addition to these phases, dissemination and communication activities will be carried out throughout the project. News on the project will be supported by regular press releases on the progress of the project. Dissemination will include publication of papers in scientific journals, presentations at conferences and other professional events. The CLIMATEMED project's website and the dedicated social media channels will also be used to provide up-to-date information on the project. All these activities are planned to be implemented during the project period.<< Results >>The CLIMATEMED project aims to create four outputs. Outputs will target the project's target groups. The target groups of the CLIMATEMED project are medical students, academic staff and practising medical doctors. The outputs by target groups are as follows: (1) for students: is a semester-long lecture series and the associated learning materials on climate change's health impacts with particular attention to the possible preventative measures against them. It will be available in English, Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian languages. (2) for academic staff: a training programme and the associated training materials. The main objective of the training is to raise academics' awareness of the phenomenon of climate change. The training consists of two training days, one week apart. (3) also for academic staff: a Teachers' guide to help academic staff integrate climate change and health into their current curricula. (4) for practising medical doctors: postgraduate training material including a curriculum and exercises that can be delivered twice in a 90 minutes long lecture/seminar. This output will help practising medical doctors update and expand their knowledge on the health impacts of climate change and the possible preventative measures against them. The developed outputs will also be available digitally and as e-learning materials on an internet-based site for interested health professionals. This open-source knowledge material can strengthen the competency of various health professionals to address new challenges related to climate change.The new course could help improve the training of medical students and encourage them to become specialists in climate health. Furthermore, future doctors will be better prepared to tackle the health challenges associated with climate change. An additional impact could be raising medical students' awareness of the multifaceted nature of climate change's effects and emphasising that addressing the associated problems requires a holistic approach. We aim to strengthen collaboration between partner universities and promote future cooperation on climate change and health and related issues.As a result of the training, academic staff will become more open to the health implications of climate change. This will make this issue part of the curriculum in medical schools. Medical students can therefore learn more and more about the different aspects of climate change in the mandatory lectures and seminars. It may encourage and motivate students to identify this knowledge and pay more attention to the further development of this professional position during their studies and hopefully future work.The transfer of knowledge through postgraduate training may result in practitioners becoming more open to the health impacts of climate change. It will enable them to identify and address climate change-related health problems more effectively and treat their patients more efficiently. The knowledge gained during postgraduate training can also help practitioners provide their patients with advice that will help individuals increase their resilience and protect themselves against climate-related health risks. In addition, practitioners will be encouraged and motivated to recognise and detect signs and symptoms of the health effects of climate change in their future work and be prepared to treat them.In addition, the outputs of the CLIMATEMED project will make it easier for medical universities in the European Union to integrate climate change and health issues in their curricula and support it as a horizontal priority act."