Abstract

Human health care systems have long utilized medicinal plants. In every World Health Organization (WHO) region, at least 80% of people say they use herbal medicines. As a result, climate change’s loss of access to medicinal plants could have devastating effects on global health care systems. A landmark 2017 report on health and climate change acknowledged the role of the media in addressing climate change and health issues, but media coverage of the climate crisis and its effects on medicinal plants appears to be lacking. We conducted newspaper content analysis to evaluate media coverage of the extinction of medicinal plants as a result of climate change in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Out of 198 articles published between 2008 and 2021, 19 were eligible. In addition, we carried out a systematic search of studies that had been published in peer-reviewed journals during the same time period to ascertain the extent to which reviewed newspaper articles cited scientific papers on the impact of the climate crisis on medicinal plants. 52 of the 478 papers found were published in Asian and African nations, making them eligible.