Climate Change Policies and Social Inequalities in the Transport, Infrastructure and Health Sectors: A Scoping Review Protocol

TL;DR

This paper outlines a scoping review protocol to assess how climate change policies affect social inequalities in transport, infrastructure, and health, with a focus on public health and justice.

Contribution

The paper introduces a framework to evaluate climate policies' differential impacts on vulnerable populations, aiming to inform more equitable public health strategies.

Findings

Climate policies can have uneven impacts on public health and well-being across different population groups.

There is a knowledge gap on how climate policy implementation affects social inequalities at subnational levels.

Integrating health inequality determinants into climate policy design is crucial for achieving social justice.

Abstract

Public health relevance—How does this work relate to a public health issue?
This scoping review proposes a framework for assessing climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and their differentiated impacts on the public health and well-being of diverse population groups.

This scoping review proposes a framework for assessing climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and their differentiated impacts on the public health and well-being of diverse population groups.

Public health significance—Why is this work of significance to public health?
It aims to provide policymakers with evidence-based examples of promising initiatives that ensure vulnerable groups are considered in the design of climate policies, with the goal of informing the development of more just public health policies in the National Capital Region of Québec, Canada.

It aims to provide policymakers with evidence-based examples of promising initiatives that ensure vulnerable groups are considered in the design of climate policies, with the goal of informing the development of more just public health policies in the National Capital Region of Québec, Canada.

Public health implications—What are the key implications or messages for practitioners, policy makers and/or researchers in public health?
It calls for integrating structural determinants of health inequalities into climate change policy design and implementation.

It calls for integrating structural determinants of health inequalities into climate change policy design and implementation.

Climate action has been deemed as fundamental to counteract the impacts of rising global temperatures on health which will disproportionately affect low-income populations, racial and ethnic minorities, women, and other historically marginalized groups. Along with poverty reduction, inequality mitigation, gender equality promotion, and public health protection, climate action has been recognized as a fundamental goal for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, despite growing recognition of the need to align climate action with development goals, there is a knowledge gap regarding how the implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies impacts social inequalities. To address this knowledge gap, this document proposes a scoping review protocol aimed at identifying and synthesizing research that examines the impacts of climate policies on inequalities at the subnational scales, within the transport, infrastructure and health. The objective of this review is to map existing evidence, identify conceptual and empirical gaps and inform policy strategies that promote climate action in line with values of social justice and equality.