Submission ID 131890
| Issue/Objective | Climate change is a critical upstream determinant of health that disrupts other fundamental and vital social determinants of health-food, water, housing, and livelihoods-disproportionately affecting marginalized communities and highlighting an urgent need for health equity. International students in Canada navigate multiple environmental, cultural, and health systems contexts; therefore, their perspectives could offer valuable insights into how climate-related health risks are understood across borders. Objectives: 1) To explore international students' perceptions of the impact of climate change on individual and public/societal health; and 2) To identify context-specific best practices to foster a culture of engagement and advocacy on climate action. |
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| Methodology/Approach | We took a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach and recruited 42 graduate students from four universities in Canada: Trent University (n=10), Queen's University (n=7), McMaster University (n=11), and the University of British Columbia (n=14). To capture their lived experiences, participants took 5-7 photos of their environment, explaining each photo in a 60-90-minute follow-up interview. We applied thematic analysis from an intersectional lens to analyze interview transcripts and participant-generated photographs by identifying themes and how multiple, overlapping social identities interact to create unique experiences of climate change. |
| Results | Although intersecting identities influenced how participants interpreted and compared global climate realities with the Canadian context, several cross-cutting themes emerged, including: 1) climate change as an embodied, lived determinant of health; 2) urban environments (air quality, built infrastructure, and access to green space) shape health outcomes; 3) climate-related harms are unevenly distributed; 4) climate change as a shared global responsibility, linked to individual behaviours; and 5) anxiety and uncertainty about the future, reflecting the psychosocial burden of climate change. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | Aligned with the theme of collectively reclaiming global health equity, these findings highlight the need to restore commitment to collective action and foster inclusive, globally informed approaches to climate change and One Planet One Health. Our findings can inform climate response strategies for stakeholders designing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, such as universities and governments, to support international students' adaptive capacities towards the health-related vulnerabilities of climate change. |
| Presenters and Affiliations | Nomusa Mngoma Queen's University Bharati Sethi Trent University Allison Williams McMaster University T. Claire Davies Queen's University Rubee Dev University of British Columbia Kelvin Fong George Washington University |
