Initiating transformative medical practices to address environmental challenges – proceedings of “Santé en 2050”, the French national conference on healthcare adaptation

Abstract “Santé en 2050” is the first medical conference in France dedicated to the adaptation of healthcare systems to environmental constraints. Organized in 2024 and 2025 by healthcare professionals within The Shifters, a non-profit association committed to raising public awareness of the dual carbon challenge, the conference provided both a scientific platform for research on mitigation and adaptation in health and a forum to enhance professional competencies on these cross-cutting issues. Over its two successful editions, the event mapped the emerging disease landscape driven by environmental exposures and climate change, affecting both communicable and non-communicable diseases due to shifting temperatures, precipitation patterns, mass population movements, unhealthy lifestyles, and increasing pollution. Climate change also poses indirect threats to health by straining infrastructure, disrupting supply chains, and triggering crises that practitioners must address with ever-scarcer resources. The conference underscored the urgent need for a systemic overhaul of healthcare to build resilient, sustainable care pathways. It provided attendees with practical tools to integrate ecodesigned care, integrative medical approaches, and non-pharmacological interventions into their daily practice. The conference further explored pressing ethical and philosophical dilemmas, examining how technology, research priorities, and innovation must evolve in response to environmental constraints and the broader responsibility of medicine at a population level. Here we summarize the topics discussed during the two editions of the conference. By equipping healthcare workers with skills in epidemiology, disease prevention, and continuity of care amid accelerating environmental change, “Santé en 2050” aims to prepare the medical community for the challenges of tomorrow.