Short Abstract

Examines how climate emergencies shape health across diverse African contexts. We invite interdisciplinary contributions on climate-related diseases, food security, mental and maternal health, displacement, resilient health systems, indigenous knowledge, climate justice, and community-led adaptation

Long Abstract

Climate change is increasingly recognized as one of the greatest threats to human health in the twenty-first century, yet its impacts across Africa are far from uniform. Rather than producing a singular narrative of vulnerability, climate change is refracted through diverse ecological, political, historical, and socio-cultural contexts, giving rise to multiple health realities across the continent. Floods, droughts, cyclones, heatwaves, and climate-induced displacement are reshaping disease patterns, disrupting health systems, undermining food and water security, and exacerbating inequalities, while simultaneously generating locally grounded forms of resilience and adaptation. The launch of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change in Africa further recognizes the urgent need for African-led scholarship that places health at the centre of climate action and foregrounds context-specific evidence to inform policy and practice.

This panel challenges homogenizing representations of Africa's climate-health future by examining how climate emergencies are lived, interpreted, and governed across diverse African settings. We particularly welcome research that bridges public health, anthropology, sociology, geography, disaster studies, political ecology, environmental humanities, and implementation science.

By foregrounding multiple African perspectives, methodologies, and epistemologies, the panel seeks to move beyond deficit-based narratives that position African communities solely as victims of climate change. Instead, it highlights the diverse ways individuals, communities, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers are responding to increasingly frequent climate emergencies and reimagining healthier, more equitable futures. In doing so, the panel demonstrates that understanding climate and health in Africa requires viewing the continent not through a single lens but through multiple prisms.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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