Spatialising Climate Impacts on Health: A Focus on Vulnerable Settlements in Megacities of the Global South

Climate impacts on urban health need to be spatialised. This proposal focuses on vulnerable settlements that have specific spatial, material, ecological and socio-economic contexts that shape the extent of pre- and post-exposure vulnerabilities, the nature of the climate risk, the nature and severity of health outcomes, and the possibilities of adaptation. In this project the team will: a) synthesise and contextualise the impacts of climate change on health in vulnerable urban settlements in India, Kenya, South Africa and Sierra Leone; b) co-produce compelling stories of health-related climate impacts and the actions which could address them in order to bring complex causal pathways to life; and c) develop innovative approaches to achieving impact at multiple scales.

This project team is trans-disciplinary and has long-standing relationships with vulnerable settlements – informal settlements and workplaces, building occupations, and worker housing colonies. Through their presence in these sites, they have seen both the rising and differential experience of climate change as well as its impacts on health outcomes. It is through this engagement that they will tell nuanced, multi-scalar, complex yet compelling and rooted stories about climate’s impact on health as well as offering ways of engagement and response.