Oral

The objective of our session is to spur critical public health thinking and action regarding data and the public health and health equity impacts of global warming, both in the US and elsewhere. At issue is how global climate change can affect human health inequities both directly and also indirectly (e.g., by affecting other animals, plants, and microorganisms in ways that then affect human health and health inequities). Although not exclusive, examples of abstract topics we are interested in include: (1) Empirical research on links between global climate change and health inequities (within and across nations and regions); (2) Empirical research on the health “co-benefits” and implications for health equity of shifting from high to lower carbon-economies (e.g., more public transportation, more walking, less meat consumption, less air pollution); (3) Empirical research on the health consequences, and implications for health equity, of community efforts to promote “buen vivir” (“living well,” as opposed to living better than others) and related frameworks that emphasize sustainable human development; (4) Empirical research on health inequities linked to adverse consequences of unsustainable energy extraction and production; (5) Empirical research on the health inequities caused by inequities in energy consumption; (6) Empirical research on health inequities in relation to the adverse health consequences (mental and physical), including health inequities, linked to political economies premised on unsustainable growth and overconsumption in response to “manufactured desires”; (7) Methodologies to link measures of global climate change to measures of health inequities, and to monitor these links; (8) Data on, and evaluation of approaches toward, global climate change activism and environmental justice activism that is focused on links between global climate change and health inequities (or health equity); (9) Mixed methods approaches to analyzing links between the political and economic determinants of health inequities and the political and economic determinants of denialism of global warming (and the interests underlying such denials); and (10) Empirical analysis of the visual display of public health data as it relates to global climate change and health equity, including in relation to any of the above-listed topics.

Session Objectives: Describe evidence-based empirical examples of how global climate change can affect human health inequities both directly and also indirectly (e.g., by affecting other animals, plants, and microorganisms in ways that then affect human health and health inequities).