Abstract
Climate change and attendant weather events are global phenomena with wide-ranging implications for migration and health. We argue that while these issues are inherently interrelated, little empirical or policy attention has been given to the three-way nexus between climate vulnerability, migration, and health. In this Review, we develop a conceptual model to guide research on this three-way nexus. In so doing, we apply our conceptual model to a range of case studies, including Bangladesh, Mexico, Myanmar, and the USA. They illustrate that climate vulnerability-migration-health interlinkages are context specific, varying by political, economic, demographic, social, and environmental factors unique to each population and place. Even so, the case studies also demonstrate that overarching themes amenable to policy can be identified. Global organizations and researchers from a multiplicity of disciplinary backgrounds have strong imperatives and unique but often overlooked capacity to innovate and experiment in addressing climate vulnerability-migration-health interlinkages. We call for research and policy focus on these issues and suggest targeted efforts to begin mitigating migration and health issues associated with global climate change.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
It is important to note that migration decisions involve a variable degree of agency that inversely corresponds to the strength of the environmental threat. Ultimately, the relationships and tipping points implied depend both on the magnitude of a climate event or threat and the characteristics of the individual and/or population and place affected (Füssel & Klein, 2006).
Underlined text represent concepts presented in Fig. 1.
Our focus on scale allows for consideration of how conditions (including socioeconomic conditions) in communities or otherwise localized environments modify how spatial and temporal exposures matter for climate vulnerability, migration, and health (Grace 2017; Grace et. al., 2020; Wu, Zaitchik, Swarup, Gohlke, 2019).
While common classification systems often distinguish an event dichotomously by its intensity (i.e., a sudden onset, high severity) and extent (i.e., low severity, high frequency), distinctions between intensive and extensive risks are quite arbitrary since there is no quantifiable threshold between these two classificatory schemes (UNISDR, 2015). Indeed, such classifications miss other types of events that influence migration and health (UNISDR, 2015) such as droughts that may unfold over years, eventually reaching a threshold rendering places uninhabitable. As a consequence, we articulate several dimensions of climate events within our conceptual framework.
Underlined text represent central elements of the conceptual model presented in Fig. 2.
References
Adams, H. (2016). Why populations persist: mobility, place attachment and climate change. Population and Environment, 37(4), 429–448.
Adger, W. N., Pulhin, J. M., Barnett, J., Dabelko, G. D., Hovelsrud, G. K., Levy, M., ... & Vogel, C. H. (2014). Human security. Cambridge University Press.
Adeola, F. O., & Picou, J. S. (2012). Race, social capital, and the health impacts of Katrina: Evidence from the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast. Human Ecology Review, 19(1), 10–24.
Ahmed, K. J., Haq, S. M. A., & Bartiaux, F. (2019). The nexus between extreme weather events, sexual violence, and early marriage: a study of vulnerable populations in Bangladesh. Population and Environment, 40(3), 303–324.
Akter, T. (2009). Migration and living conditions in urban slums: implications for food security. Unnayan Onneshan.
Alam, A., Sammonds, P., & Ahmed, B. (2020). Cyclone risk assessment of the Cox’s Bazar district and Rohingya refugee camps in southeast Bangladesh. Science of The Total Environment, 704, 135360.
Arenas, E., Goldman, N., Pebley, A. R., & Teruel, G. (2015). Return migration to Mexico: Does health matter? Demography, 52(6), 1853–1868.
Ayeb-Karlsson, S., Kniveton, D., & Cannon, T. (2020). Trapped in the prison of the mind: Notions of climate-induced (im)mobility decision-making and wellbeing from an urban informal settlement in Bangladesh. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications 6: Article number 6.
Barnshaw, J., & Trainor, J. (2007). Race, class, and capital amidst the Hurricane Katrina diaspora (pp. 91–105). Perspectives on a modern catastrophe.
Becerra, D., Androff, D., Messing, J. T., Castillo, J., & Cimino, A. (2015). Linguistic acculturation and perceptions of quality, access, and discrimination in health care among Latinos in the United States. Social work in health care, 54(2), 134–157.
Belkhir, J. A., & Charlemaine, C. (2007). Race, Gender and Class Lessons from Hurricane Katrina. Race, Gender & Class, 14(1/2), 120–152.
Berry, H. L., Bowen, K., & Kjellstrom, T. (2010). Climate change and mental health: a causal pathways framework. International journal of public health, 55(2), 123–132.
Bhatta, G. D., Aggarwal, P. K., Poudel, S., & Belgrave, D. A. (2016). Climate-induced migration in South Asia: Migration decisions and the gender dimensions of adverse climatic events. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 10(4).
Biesbroek, G. R., Klostermann, J. E. M., Termeer, C. J. A. M., & Kabat, P. (2013). On the nature of barriers to climate change adaptation. Regional Environmental Change, 13(5), 1119–1129.
Black, R., Adger, W. N., Arnell, N. W., Dercon, S., Geddes, A., & Thomas, D. (2011). The effect of environmental change on human migration. Global Environmental Change, 21, S3–S11.
Black, R., Arnell, N. W., Adger, W. N., Thomas, D., & Geddes, A. (2013). Migration, immobility, and displacement outcomes following extreme events. Environmental Science & Policy, 27(S1), S32–S43.
Black, R., Bennett, S. R., Thomas, S. M., & Beddington, J. R. (2011). Migration as adaptation. Nature, 478(7370), 447–449.
Burton, L. C., Skinner, E. A., Uscher-Pines, L., Lieberman, R., Leff, B., Clark, R., Yu, Q., Lemke, K. W., & Weiner, J. P. (2009). Health of Medicare Advantage Plan Enrollees at One Year after Hurricane Katrina. American Journal of Managed Care, 15(1), 13–22.
Carrico, A. R., & Donato, K. (2019). Extreme weather and migration: evidence from Bangladesh. Population and Environment, 41(1), 1-31.
Cascone, N., del Valle Isla, A. E. P., & Milan, A. (2016). Circular Migration and Local Adaptation in the Mountainous Community of Las Palomas (Mexico). In Migration, Risk Management and Climate Change: Evidence and Policy Responses (pp. 63–83). Springer, Cham.
Chen, J., & Mueller, V. (2018). Coastal climate change, soil salinity and human migration in Bangladesh. Nature Climate Change, 8(11), 981–985.
Chiquiar, D., & Salcedo, A. (2013). Mexican migration to the United States: Underlying economic factors and possible scenarios for future flows (No. 2013–20). Working Papers.
Cooper, M., Brown, M. E., Azzarri, C., & Meinzen-Dick, R. (2019). Hunger, nutrition, and precipitation: evidence from Ghana and Bangladesh. Population and Environment, 41, 151–208.
Cutter, S. L., Barnes, L., Berry, M., Burton, C., Evans, E., Tate, E., & Webb, J. (2008). A place-based model for understanding community resilience to natural disasters. Global Environmental Change, 18(4), 598–606.
Cutter, S. L., Mitchell, J. T., & Scott, M. S. (2000). Revealing the vulnerability of people and places: A case study of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 90(4), 713–737.
Davis, K. F., Bhattachan, A., D’Odorico, P., & Suweis, S. (2018). A universal model for predicting human migration under climate change: examining future sea level rise in Bangladesh. Environmental Research Letters, 13(6), 064030.
Deryungina, T., & Molitar, D. (2019). Does when you die depend on where you live? Evidence from Hurricane Katrina. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 24822.
Diaz, C. J., Koning, S. M., & Martinez-Donate, A. P. (2016). Moving beyond salmon bias: Mexican return migration and health selection. Demography, 53(6), 2005–2030.
Elder, K., Xirasagar, S., Miller, N., Bowen, S. A., Glover, S., & Piper, C. (2007). African Americans’ Decisions Not to Evacuate New Orleans Before Hurricane Katrina: A Qualitative Study. American Journal of Public Health, 97(Suppl 1), S124–S129.
Elliott, J. R., & Pais, J. (2006). Race, class, and Hurricane Katrina: Social differences in human responses to disaster. Social Science Research, 35(2), 295–321.
Feng, S., Krueger, A. B., & Oppenheimer, M. (2010). Linkages among climate change, crop yields, and Mexico-US cross-border migration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(32), 14257–14262.
Fleury, A. (2016). Understanding women and migration: A literature review. Washington, DC.
Füssel, H. M., & Klein, R. J. (2006). Climate change vulnerability assessments: an evolution of conceptual thinking. Climatic change, 75(3), 301–329.
Fussell, E. (2018). Population displacements and migration patterns in response to Hurricane Katrina. Routledge Handbook of Environmental Displacement and Migration, 277–288.
Fussell, E. (2012). Space, time, and volition: Dimensions of migration theory. In Oxford Handbook of the Politics of International Migration.
Fussell, E., & Lowe, S. R. (2014). The impact of housing displacement on the mental health of low-income parents after Hurricane Katrina. Social Science & Medicine, 113, 137–144.
Fussell, E., Sastry, N., & VanLandingham, M. (2010). Race, socioeconomic status, and return migration to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Population & Environment, 31(1–3), 20–42.
Geun Ji, H. (2019). The evolution of the policy environment for climate change migration in Bangladesh: Competing narratives, coalitions and power. Development Policy Review, 37(5), 603–620.
Ginnetti, J. & Lavell, C. (2015). The risk of disaster-induced displacement in Southeast Asia. Tehcnical Paper. International Disaster Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Grace, K. (2017). Considering climate in studies of fertility and reproductive health in poor countries. Nature Climate Change, 7, 479.
Grace, K., Billingsley, S., & Van Riper, D. (2020). Building an interdisciplinary framework to advance conceptual and technical aspects of population-environment research focused on women’s and children’s health. Social Science & Medicine, 250, 112857.
Groen, J. A., & Polivka, A. E. (2010). Going home after Hurricane Katrina: Determinants of return migration and changes in affected areas. Demography, 47, 821–844.
Hallegatte, S., Green, C., Nicholls, R. J., & Corfee-Morlot, J. (2013). Future flood losses in major coastal cities. Nature Climate Change., 3, 802–806.
Haney, T. J., Elliott, J. R., & Fussell, E. (2010). Families and hurricane response: Risk, roles, resources, race, and religion. In D. Brunsma, D. Overfelt, & J. S. Picou (Eds.), The Sociology of Katrina: Perspectives on a modern catastrophe (2nd ed., pp. 77–102). Rowman & Littlefield.
Horton et al. 2017 with citation below: Horton, R., De Mel, M., Peters, D., Lesk, C., Bartlett, R., Helsingen, H., & Rosenzweig, C (2017). Assessing climate risk in Myanmar: Technical report. Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University, WWF-US and WWF-Myanmar: New York, NY, USA.
Hunt, J. S., Armenta, B. E., Seifert, A. L., & Snowden, J. L. (2009). The other side of the diaspora: Race, threat, and the social psychology of evacuee reception in predominantly white communities. Organization & Environment, 22(4), 437–447.
Huq, N., Hugé, J., Boon, E., & Gain, A. K. (2015). Climate change impacts in agricultural communities in rural areas of coastal Bangladesh: A tale of many stories. Sustainability, 7(7), 8437–8460.
Hutchinson, S. (2018). Gendered insecurity in the Rohingya crisis. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 72(1), 1–9.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2001). Climate change 2001: Impacts. Adaptation and Vulnerability.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC. (2014). AR5: Summary for policymakers. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L.White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1–32.
Islam, M. T., & Nursey-Bray, M. (2017). Adaptation to climate change in agriculture in Bangladesh: The role of formal institutions. Journal of environmental management, 200, 347-358.
Jochum, B., Devine, C., Calain, P., Guevara, M., Nayna Schwerdtle, P., Biorklund Belliveau, L., et al. (2018). 'Climate Change and Health: An urgent new frontier for humanitarianism', The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.
Jonkman, S. N., Maaskant, B., Boyd, E., & Levitan, M. L. (2009). Loss of life caused by the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: Analysis of the relationship between flood characteristics and mortality. Risk Analysis, 29(5), 676–698.
Kabir, M. I., Rahman, M. B., Smith, W., Lusha, M. A. F., & Milton, A. H. (2016). Climate change and health in Bangladesh: a baseline cross-sectional survey. Global Health Action, 9(1), 29609.
Kammerbauer, M., & Wamsler, C. (2017). Social inequality and marginalization in post-disaster recovery: Challenging the consensus? International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 24, 411–418.
Kates, R. W., Colten, C. E., Laska, S., & Leatherman, S. P. (2006). Reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: A research perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 103, 14653–15660.
Langlois, E. V., Haines, A., Tomson, G., & Ghaffar, A. (2016). Refugees: towards better access to health-care services. The Lancet, 387(10016), 319–321.
Leichenko, R., & Silva, J. A. (2014). Climate change and poverty: vulnerability, impacts, and alleviation strategies. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(4), 539–556.
Leyk, S., Runfola, D., Nawrotzki, R. J., Hunter, L. M., & Riosmena, F. (2017). Internal and international mobility as adaptation to climatic variability in contemporary Mexico: Evidence from the integration of census and satellite data. Population, Space and Place, 23(6), e2047.
Lutz, W., & Muttarak, R. (2017). Forecasting societies’ adaptive capacities through a demographic metabolism model. Nature Climate Change, 7(3), 177–184.
Mahmood, S. S., Wroe, E., Fuller, A., & Leaning, J. (2017). The Rohingya people of Myanmar: health, human rights, and identity. The Lancet, 389(10081), 1841–1850.
Massey, D. S., Durand, J., & Malone, N. J. (2003). Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. Russell Sage Foundation.
Mazhin, S. A., Khankeh, H., Farrokhi, M., Aminizadeh, M., & Poursadeqiyan, M. (2020). Migration health crisis associated with climate change: A systematic review. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 9.
McMichael, C. (2015). Climate change-related migration and infectious disease. Virulence, 6(6), 544–549.
McMichael, A. J. (2000). The urban environment and health in a world of increasing globalization: issues for developing countries. Bulletin of the world Health Organization, 78, 1117–1126.
McLeman, R., & Gemenne, F. (2018). Environmental migration research. Routledge Handbook of Environmental Displacement and Migration, 3.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) (2018). Climate Change Profile Bangladesh. Available from: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Burundi_1.pdf
Muttarak, R., Lutz, W., & Jiang, L. (2016). What can demographers contribute to the study of vulnerability? Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 2015(13), 1–13.
Nightingale, A. J. (2017). Power and politics in climate change adaptation efforts: Struggles over authority and recognition in the context of political instability. Geoforum, 84, 11–20.
O’Brien, M. J., Alos, V. A., Davey, A., Bueno, A., & Whitaker, R. C. (2014). Peer Reviewed: Acculturation and the Prevalence of Diabetes in US Latino Adults, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007–2010. Preventing chronic disease, 11.
Paxson, C., Fussell, E., Rhodes, J., & Waters, M. (2012). Five years later: Recovery from post traumatic stress and psychological distress among low-income mothers affected by Hurricane Katrina. Social Science & Medicine, 74(2), 150–157.
Pinchoff, J., Shamsudduha, M., Hossain, S. M. I., Shohag, A. A. M., & Warren, C. E. (2019). Spatio-temporal patterns of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in relation to drinking water salinity at the district level in Bangladesh from 2016 to 2018. Population and Environment, 41, 235–251.
Rai, N., Huq, S., & Huq, M. J. (2014). Climate resilient planning in Bangladesh: a review of progress and early experiences of moving from planning to implementation. Development in Practice, 24(4), 527–543.
Raker, E. J., Lowe, S. R., Arcaya, M. C., Johnson, S. T., Rhodes, J., & Waters, M. C. (2019). Twelve years later: The long-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina. Social Science & Medicine, 242, 112610.
Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2017). Myanmar climate change policy.
Rigaud, K. K., Jones, B., Bergmann, J., Clement, V., Ober, K., Schewe, J., & Midgley, A. (2018). Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration. World Bank.
Riosmena, F., Wong, R., & Palloni, A. (2013). Migration selection, protection, and acculturation in health: a binational perspective on older adults. Demography, 50(3), 1039–1064.
Roubinov, D. S., Hagan, M. J., Boyce, W. T., Adler, N. E., & Bush, N. R. (2018). Family socioeconomic status, cortisol, and physical health in early childhood: the role of advantageous neighborhood characteristics. Psychosomatic medicine, 80(5), 492.
Rudowitz, R., Rowland, D., & Shartzer, A. (2006). Health Care in New Orleans Before and After Hurricane Katrina: The storm of 2005 exposed problems that had existed for years and made solutions more complex and difficult to obtain. Health Affairs, 25(Suppl1), W393–W406.
Sastry, N., & Gregory, J. (2013). The effect of Hurricane Katrina on the prevalence of health impairments and disability among adults in New Orleans: Differences by age, race, and sex. Social Science & Medicine, 80, 121–129.
Sastry, N., & VanLandingham, M. (2009). One year later: Mental illness prevalence and disparities among New Orleans Residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. American Journal of Public Health, 99(S3), S725–S731.
Sharkey, P. (2007). Survival and death in New Orleans: An empirical look at the human impact of Katrina. Journal of Black Studies, 37(4), 482–501.
Schmidt-Verkerk, K. (2010). ‘Buscando la vida’–How Do Perceptions of Increasingly Dry Weather Affect Migratory Behaviour in Zacatecas, Mexico?. In Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability (pp. 99–113). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Schwerdtle P, Bowen K, & McMichael C. (2018). The health impacts of climate-related migration. BMC Medicine, Dec;16(1):1.
Schwerdtle, P. N., Bowen, K., McMichael, C., & Sauerborn, R. (2019). Human mobility and health in a warming world. Journal of Travel Medicine, 26(1), tay160.
Schwerdtle, P. N., McMichael, C., Mank, I., Sauerborn, R., Danquah, I., & Bowen, K. (2020). Health and migration in the context of a changing climate: A systematic literature assessment. Environmental Research Letters.
Shultz, J. M., Garfin, D. R., Espinel, Z., Araya, R., Oquendo, M. A., Wainberg, M. L., & Neria, Y. (2014). Internally displaced “victims of armed conflict” in Colombia: the trajectory and trauma signature of forced migration. Current psychiatry reports, 16(10), 475.
Shultz, J. M., Rechkemmer, A., Rai, A., & McManus, K. T. (2019a). Public Health and Mental Health Implications of Environmentally Induced Forced Migration. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 13(2), 116–122.
Sverdlik, A. (2011). Ill-health and poverty: a literature review on health in informal settlements. Environment and Urbanization, 23(1), 123–155.
Thomas, K., Hardy, R. D., Lazrus, H., Mendez, M., Orlove, B., Rivera-Collazo, I., & Winthrop, R. (2019). Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: A social science review. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10(2), e565.
Uscher-Pines, L. (2009). Health effects of relocation following disaster: A systematic review of the literature. Disasters, 33(1), 1–22.
United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). (2017). Climate Change and Disasters. Geneva, Switzerland. [updated 2019; cited 2019 Oct 2]. Available from: http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html
United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) (2015). Displacement and Disaster Risk Reduction. Available: https://www.unhcr.org/5665945e9.pdf
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. (UNISDR). (2015). Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Available: https://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/gar/2015/en/home/index.html
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2019). Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2018. 1211 Geneva, Switzerland; 20 June (76 p.).
USGCRP (2017). Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I [Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, 470 pp, https://doi.org/10.7930/J0J964J6
Van Den Hoek, J., Murillo-Sandoval, P., Crumley, R. L., Devenish, A., Fein, F., Kennedy, R. E.,... & Harris, T. (2018). Refugee Camps as climate traps: Measuring the Enviro-Climatic Marginality of 922 Global Refugee Camps with Satellite Time Series Data. (Vol. 2018, pp. IN44A-04).
Warner, K. (2010). Global environmental change and migration: Governance challenges. Global Environmental Change, 20(3), 402–413.
Watts, N., Amann, A., Ayeb-Karlsson, B., & Boykoff, … Ekins. . (2019). The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate. The Lancet, 394(10211), 1836–1878.
Werz, M., & Hoffman, M. (2016). Europe’s twenty-first century challenge: climate change, migration and security. European View, 15(1), 145–154.
World Health Organization (WHO). (1998). World Health Organization definition of health.
Wu, C. Y., Zaitchik, B. F., Swarup, S., & Gohlke, J. M. (2019). Influence of the spatial resolution of the exposure estimate in determining the association between heat waves and adverse health outcomes. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 109(3), 875–886.
Yeates, N., & Pillinger, J. (2013). Human resources for health migration: global policy responses, initiatives, and emerging issues.
Young, M. Y., & Chan, K. J. (2015). The psychological experience of refugees: A gender and cultural analysis. In Psychology of Gender Through the Lens of Culture (pp. 17–36). Springer, Cham.
Acknowledgements
Advisory Board Member Dr. Kathryn Grace served as Guest Editor for this Review Article.
Funding
This research has been supported by Project Number R13HD078101-05 CUPC Climate Change, Migration, and Health Conference. The project has also benefited from research, administrative, and computing support provided by the University of Colorado Population Center (Project 2P2CHD066613-06), funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the CUPC, NIH or CU Boulder.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Disclaimer
The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the CUPC, NIH or CU Boulder. Scales and Sensitivities in Climate Vulnerability, Migration, and Health
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Extended author information available on the last page of the article.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hunter, L.M., Koning, S., Fussell, E. et al. Scales and sensitivities in climate vulnerability, displacement, and health. Popul Environ 43, 61–81 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-021-00377-7
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-021-00377-7