The Role of Behavioral Medicine in Addressing Climate Change-Related Health Inequities.
Leticia Nogueira, Kristi E White, Brooke Bell, Katie E Alegria, Gary Bennett, Donald Edmondson, Elissa Epel, E Alison Holman, Ian M Kronish, Julian Thayer
Author Information
Leticia Nogueira: American Cancer Society, Kennesaw, GA, USA. ORCID
Kristi E White: Hennepin Healthcare, Minneapolis, MN, USA. ORCID
Brooke Bell: Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Katie E Alegria: University of California-Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
Gary Bennett: Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
Donald Edmondson: Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Elissa Epel: University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
E Alison Holman: University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
Ian M Kronish: Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Julian Thayer: University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in human history. It has been declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization and leading researchers from academic institutions around the globe. Structural racism disproportionately exposes communities targeted for marginalization to the harmful consequences of climate change through greater risk of exposure and sensitivity to climate hazards and less adaptive capacity to the health threats of climate change. Given its interdisciplinary approach to integrating behavioral, psychosocial, and biomedical knowledge, the discipline of behavioral medicine is uniquely qualified to address the systemic causes of climate change-related health inequities and can offer a perspective that is currently missing from many climate and health equity efforts. In this article, we summarize relevant concepts, describe how climate change and structural racism intersect to exacerbate health inequities, and recommend six strategies with the greatest potential for addressing climate-related health inequities.
