Do Climate Change Interventions Impact the Determinants of Health for Pacific Island Peoples? A Literature Review

Abstract

Climate-change impacts, especially those on health, are widely unequal and inequitable. For Pacific Island peoples, climate change has been suggested as perpetuating and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and poor health outcomes related to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age and the surrounding social and political organization of society—the social and structural determinants of health. In this analytical literature review, we evaluate the diverse impacts of common climate-change interventions—including migration, ecosystem-based management, community-based adaptation, and adaptation of the tourism industry and health sector—through the lens of these determinants of health, highlighting both opportunities and challenges. We show that climate-change interventions around the Pacific present possibilities not only to address the direct impacts of climate change but also, with careful planning and local leadership and action, to positively impact the determinants of health for Pacific Islanders. By intentionally designing and leading climate-change interventions that improve these determinants of health, Pacific communities could decrease their vulnerabilities to the health impacts of climate change while promoting better health outcomes in general.