NCCDH resources: Climate change and health equity
Some of the resources below are available in English only (and indicated as such)
Massive human-caused ecological changes, such as climate change, affect the health of communities across the globe. These health effects have a disproportionate impact on structurally disadvantaged populations, often exacerbating existing inequities.
To encourage public health practitioners to respond to changes in planetary health, and centre equity in their responses, the NCCDH has produced a number of different resources on this topic.
- Climate change, health equity and public health responses: A curated list. This list of resources was selected to increase understanding of climate change as an urgent public health issue, situate climate change and health equity as being inextricably linked and support emerging public health practice in this area.
- “Climate change and health equity” In this backgrounder, NCCDH Knowledge Translation Specialist Pemma Muzumdar discusses climate change as an urgent public health issue and a structural driver of inequity. She outlines related concepts such as unequal vulnerability, climate justice and climate debt.
- “Centring equity in emerging public health responses to climate change” In this evidence review and commentary, Pemma Muzumdar identifies opportunities to integrate a health equity focus into emerging public health responses to a changing climate. She proposes a framework for public health roles to address climate change and improve health equity.
- “Climate change — who is most vulnerable and why?” In this NCCDH student guest blog post, Daniel Jubas-Malz and Melissa Perri discuss climate change vulnerability, reflecting on some of the limitations of the climate change literature.
- Learning from Practice: Advocacy for health equity — Environmental racism: This paper highlights the experience of the Nova Scotia-based Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH) project in advocating against environmental racism that impacts Mi’kmaq and African-Canadian communities.
- Webinar recording: Climate change, public health and equity: The goal of this webinar is to bring a public health voice to the issue of climate change, focusing particularly on the issue’s relationship to health equity at the local public health level. A recent document has been released through the Public Health Institute Center for Climate Change and Health and the American Public Health Association titled Climate change, health, and equity: A guide for local health departments.
Related resources from our peers
- NCCHPP Web page: Policy and climate change (No date)
- Blog post: “Responding to climate change as public health professionals” (2020)
- Think piece (“Public health and the Anthropocene”) (2020)
Tags: Climate change