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- Convenors:
-
Anh Ngoc Vu
(National Centre for Social Research (UK))
Jonathan Rigg (University of Bristol)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Resilience and wellbeing
- Location:
- CB5.1, Chancellor's Building
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 25 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract
The panel explores the impacts of extreme weather on the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations in urban areas of the global South. We welcome papers addressing the nature of multiple health exposure, social vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities and policy interventions and effectiveness.
Description
The panel explores the impacts of extreme weather on the health and broader wellbeing of vulnerable populations in urban areas of the global South. We invite papers on the nature of multiple health exposure, social vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities and policy interventions in lower and middle income countries (LMICs). Calls to advance climate action are increasingly placing an emphasis on the need for a health centred approach especially for vulnerable communities (e.g. migrants) and population groups (e.g. elderly). Emerging evidence shows climate change has multiple adverse effects on people such as heat-related illnesses, non-accidental deaths and injuries, loss of productivity, as well as increased risks from infectious and vector-borne diseases, and various mental health issues. Climate change is also placing additional burdens on health care systems in LMICs that are already poorly resourced and are often ill-equipped to respond. Papers presenting findings from transformative interdisciplinary research projects that address knowledge gaps and explore policy successes and failures in understanding climate change impacts on physical and mental health of vulnerable social groups in urban areas are particularly welcome.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Wednesday 25 June, 2025, -Paper short abstract
This paper focused on the social cost of carbon emissions, which is carbon damage, precipitation, and humidity on mortality rate, that consists of the life-time risk of maternal death, maternal mortality, infant mortality, and under-5 mortality rate in some selected sub-Saharan African nations.
Paper long abstract
The study investigates the impact of climate change on mortality rates in 15 sub-Saharan African countries from 1995 to 2020, focusing on variables like carbon damage, precipitation, and humidity. Mortality indicators include infant, under-5, maternal mortality, and lifetime risk of maternal death, with health expenditure and crop production index as controls. Using ex-post research design and data from the World Bank and WHO, the study applies the PMG model for long- and short-run analyses.
Findings indicate that carbon damage reduces mortality rates in the long run, while humidity increases infant and under-5 mortality in both the short and long run. Precipitation reduces infant and under-5 mortality in the long run, and health expenditure negatively affects mortality rates. The crop production index shows limited significance, except for a long-term effect on maternal mortality.
The study concludes that sub-Saharan Africa faces heightened vulnerability to climate change, which worsens health outcomes, weakens fragile health systems, and exacerbates inequality. It calls for coordinated climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, health system strengthening, and socioeconomic development to reduce mortality and build resilience in the region.
Paper short abstract
This paper explores the impact of social vulnerabilities on climate-related health risks and adaptive capacities to these risks among informal workers in Vietnam by analysing a survey of 400 respondents using logistic and linear regression, highlighting the reproduction of social vulnerabilities.
Paper long abstract
This paper explores the impact of social vulnerabilities on climate-related health risks among four types of informal workers, namely street vendors, motorbike taxi riders, porters, and construction workers in four Vietnamese cities, including Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Da Nang, and Can Tho. Using logistic and linear regression to analyse a survey of over 400 informal workers, this paper assesses the statistical associations between workers’ economic, cultural, and other social vulnerabilities with their climate-related health risks and adaptive capacities to these risks.
First, we found that social vulnerabilities exacerbate climate-related health risks. Workers with underlying medical conditions, belonging to ethnic minorities, and from less developed cities are more likely to face both physical and mental health problems, notably depression and anxiety. Second, we found that social vulnerabilities limit adaptive capacities to climate-related health risks. Workers with underlying medical conditions, lower education levels, lower incomes, and who are more senior have less resources to respond to these risks, often remaining medically uninsured or less digitally literate. Third, we found that climate-related health risks reproduce social vulnerabilities. Workers with underlying medical conditions, belonging to ethnic minorities, coming from less developed cities, and who are more senior pay double to over quadruple the costs to deal with climate-related health risks, reducing their disposable income and reproducing their intersectional marginalisations in society. These findings suggest that in a ‘risk society’, environmental risks are unequally distributed not only along class distinctions but also along other fault lines, notably health, education, ethnicity, age, and city of origin.
Paper short abstract
We would like to bring findings and reflections from a 2-year inter-disciplinary British Academy funded project in Nairobi and Karachi investigating a nexus of climate change-health risks for communities living in informal settlements from urban infrastructural developments.
Paper long abstract
The project ‘Building Infrastructures of Repair in the 24-Hour Risk City’ (2022-2024) brought together social scientists, urbanists, engineers and psychologists to examine the nature of risks faced by communities in informal urban settlements in Karachi and Nairobi experiencing rapid infrastructure developments, and how pathways to adaptation and social justice could build on community-led repair mechanisms in the face of the climate ‘disrepair’ often engendered by these developments. This included a strong focus on the inter-relationship between physical infrastructures, health and climate disasters (flooding and heat) for vulnerable communities, and for different social groups among those communities. The paper will hone in on our findings in relation to a broad spectrum of health impacts, including psychological impacts. It will draw on qualitative research with communities affected by three road building projects in Nairobi and surveys, including a health and wellbeing survey, and in-depth interviews carried out with three communities in Karachi affected by government mega-projects and slum demolitions for drainage clearance. The analysis aims to highlight the spatial, temporal and societal dimensions of the inter-relationships between climate change and health, and the compounding and cascading effects of health and climate-related vulnerabilities. We discuss the tensions around community mechanisms for repair, and how far these can be supported to scale up adaptation.
Paper short abstract
The study used everyday geographies to understand heat-related health vulnerability in two Municipality Wards in Delhi by analysing the lives of ordinary People, their everyday actions, and common place events. This study also discussed the range of adaptation interventions to manage health risks.
Paper long abstract
Evidences suggest that temperature extremes is a leading cause of mortality worldwide in general and India in particular. According to the India Meteorological Department, 2024 was the hottest year in India since 1901. Between March and June 2024, India experienced record-breaking temperatures, with 37 cities surpassing 45 degrees Celsius. Scientists claim that India had over 700 heat related deaths in 2024, much higher than official toll. Most of the cases were reported from the state of Rajasthan, Delhi, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. In this paper Delhi was selected for the case study. Two Municipality Wards namely Najafgarh and Narela were selected for the study on the basis of Land Surface Temperature Analysis of the hottest Day of the summer season (30th May 2024) and reported heat related ailment and mortality cases. Seventy six (44 in Najafgarh and 32 in Narela) households were identified for survey by using purposive sampling. The study used everyday geographies of vulnerable population by analysing ordinary People, everyday actions, and common place events. Qualitative techniques namely Focused Group Discussion, interview and policy document analyses were used to understand the health vulnerability among vulnerable populations such as the elderly, children, and outdoor workers. The study revealed that the devastating impact of heat waves attributed to exposures to extreme temperatures intersect with poor-quality housing, least adaptive capacity of the victim, unaware healthcare professionals about protocols and inadequate infrastructure in hospitals to tackle rising heatstroke cases. This study also discussed the range of adaptation interventions to manage health risks.
Paper short abstract
Using participatory research, we analysed the health and socioeconomic facing residents in Dar’s informal settlements. Grassroots data-collection and multisectoral, co-produced initiatives may help to counteract the drivers of ill-health and support urban climate resilience.
Paper long abstract
In African informal settlements, residents often confront a range of health burdens linked to low-quality shelter and minimal infrastructure, with such challenges only exacerbated by climate change. Based on a recent participatory action-research partnership in Dar es Salaam, we explored the interrelations between multiple health and socio-economic risks facing residents in informal settlements. We also utilised dialogues between municipal officials, the Tanzanian slum-dweller federation, and other local stakeholders, who together explored multi-sectoral opportunities for promoting health and resilience in informal settlements.
Our findings centred upon the interrelated ‘everyday’ risks due to floods, minimal sanitation, and inadequate solid waste management in Dar’s informal settlements. We explain how these everyday risks can markedly affect health, livelihoods, and dignity in informal settlements, while also heightening social and environmental injustices. By using visual and participatory methods to explore these risks, we created a novel, grassroots-led analysis of interrelated challenges in informal settlements. Lacking an appreciation of communities’ lived experiences, government officials may readily overlook these chronic, often invisible set of health and socioeconomic challenges. But we argue that participatory tools can illuminate the major burdens stemming from everyday risks, while state-citizen engagements and multisectoral initiatives may help to counteract the political drivers of exclusionary, fragmented urban development. In closing, we offer recommendations for further action-research and holistic interventions that can foster urban health equity and resilience to multiple risks in African informal settlements.
Paper short abstract
Drawing from fieldwork conducted with the communities that live and work around the largest and oldest dumping yard in India, the paper examines how climate change and unprecedented heat waves are endangering their lives and livelihoods.
Paper long abstract
The Deonar dumping yard in Mumbai is home to a large community of working-class Dalit and Muslim migrant workers, who move to the dumping yard from within the city and elsewhere in the country to find livelihood in the steadily expanding economy of waste management. The dumping yard has always been a fire hazard, with fires in the past raging for days on end. However, with climate change and the unprecedented heat waves the country has experienced over the past few years, life around the dumping yard has become more precarious than before. With mounds of untreated garbage putrefying in the heat, residents fear for their lives as much as their livelihoods. The houses surrounding the dumping yard are themselves designed for packing people in, much less for ventilation. With tinned roofs or tarpaulin shades overhead, residents describe the insides of their homes as 'smelling like death'. The paper focuses specifically on women in the community and how they manage their intimate, social, and economic lives under these circumstances. As I watch women move their intimate lives out onto shaded corridors and damp alleyways to shield themselves from the pent up heat inside the home, while devising ways to escape the toxic air that blows in their direction from the dumping yard, I observe how their daily lives and routines become reconfigured around the management of heat. These negotiations with temporalities of heat, in turn, reshape the ways in which they relate to ideas of the public and the private.