Grant: Catalyst Grant: CPHO Report - General Pool

Extreme weather events displace millions of people around the world every year. Such events are displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Canada, hitting British Columbia (BC) particularly hard, and costing billions of dollars. Evacuations and long-term displacements exacerbate health inequities, disrupt homes, livelihoods, education, community cohesion, and have serious impacts on health and well-being. Yet, little empirical work has explored the specific public health effects of climate-related displacement in Canada. Thus, there is an urgent need to better understand the intersectional impacts of displacements on people, places, and health services so that communities can better prepare intersectoral plans for future impacts. Our team will explore the public health effects of recent displacements in BC, particularly within priority populations who are disproportionately impacted by climate change. We will use an anti-racist, anti-colonial planetary health approach, including culturally relevant gender-based analysis, and we will engage Indigenous and Western knowledge systems in our design, analysis, and reporting. We will host an invitational gathering of key informants to gain early insights into the lived experiences of those most affected by evacuations and displacements, conduct a review of the relevant literature, and visit Regional Health Authorities to collect data from community-based representatives, Knowledge Keepers, health and climate organizations, and/or health system experts and service providers, We will host a final hybrid gathering bringing those involved in the research to share what we learned with a broad audience across BC and beyond. Bringing community representatives together with health service providers, emergency response managers, and climate actors will to strengthen links and build capacity to address the public health impacts of climate displacement and to identify opportunities for collective and equitable action.