Health Equity in Climate Change Policies and Public Health Policies Related to Climate Change: Protocol for a Systematic Review

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 26;19(15):9126. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159126.

Abstract

The relationship between risks to health equity and climate change is well established, and various international organizations and literature has called for intersectoral action for tackling these issues. While there is a growing recognition of the importance of equity-focused responses to climate change, if and how health equity measures are incorporated into climate-change-related policy decisions has not yet been adequately explored. There are numerous approaches and frameworks for conducting policy analysis, and for understanding equity in the context of climate change and public health separately; however, a comprehensive framework for exploring the complexity of these interacting factors is hard to find. This review aims to systematically identify policy analysis frameworks and studies focusing on health equity in climate change related policies. Five electronic databases will be searched for peer-reviewed articles in English and from 2000. Articles will be subjected to systematic retrieval and quality assessment, and thematic analysis will be used for data analysis. The study findings will provide insight into different existing policy-analysis frameworks and policy-analysis approaches to understand health equity considerations in climate change policies and in health policies related to climate change.

Keywords: climate change policies; environment and public health; environmental equity; environmental policy; health equity; policy analysis; policy analysis framework; protocol; social determinants of health.

MeSH terms

  • Climate Change
  • Health Equity*
  • Health Policy
  • Humans
  • Policy Making
  • Review Literature as Topic
  • Social Determinants of Health

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding. This research is a part of a non-funded PhD research in the University of Bielefeld, Germany and has no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.