Racialized Aging in the Context of Climate Extremes: Post-Flood Healthy Aging and Recovery Among Older Adults in Quilombola Communities of Southern Brazil

TL;DR

This study explores how extreme flooding impacts the health and aging of older adults in marginalized Quilombola communities in Brazil, highlighting racialized environmental injustice.

Contribution

It introduces a novel intersectional analysis linking climate disasters, racial health inequalities, and healthy aging in historically marginalized communities.

Findings

Environmental injustice and territorial exclusion accelerate functional decline and health deterioration in older Quilombola adults.

Fragmented disaster management and governance failures intensify vulnerability and health inequities in these communities.

Quilombola communities show resilience through traditional knowledge and solidarity networks despite systemic challenges.

Abstract

Public health relevance—How does this work relate to a public health issue?
Extreme flooding directly threatens healthy aging by disrupting continuity of care, functional independence, social participation, and safe living environments for older adults in Quilombola communities.The study puts flooding into context as a critical social determinant of healthy aging, showing how environmental injustice and territorial exclusion accelerate functional decline and health deterioration in later life.

Extreme flooding directly threatens healthy aging by disrupting continuity of care, functional independence, social participation, and safe living environments for older adults in Quilombola communities.

The study puts flooding into context as a critical social determinant of healthy aging, showing how environmental injustice and territorial exclusion accelerate functional decline and health deterioration in later life.

Public health significance—Why is this work of significance to public health?
The research expands healthy aging knowledge by demonstrating how climate vulnerability and disaster governance failures undermine the ability of older adults to age with dignity, autonomy, and wellbeing in historically marginalized territories.By centering older Quilombola adults’ post-disaster quality of life, the study addresses a major evidence gap at the intersection of aging, climate change, and racial health inequalities.

The research expands healthy aging knowledge by demonstrating how climate vulnerability and disaster governance failures undermine the ability of older adults to age with dignity, autonomy, and wellbeing in historically marginalized territories.

By centering older Quilombola adults’ post-disaster quality of life, the study addresses a major evidence gap at the intersection of aging, climate change, and racial health inequalities.

Public health implications—What are the key implications or messages for practitioners, policy makers and/or researchers in public health?
Healthy aging policies and programs must incorporate disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation strategies that protect functional capacity, ensure continuity of care, and support place-based aging for older adults in vulnerable communities.Public health practitioners and researchers should adopt equity- and rights-based approaches that recognize older adults as key stakeholders in disaster prevention and recovery, in addition to addressing structural determinants shaping unequal aging trajectories under climate change.

Healthy aging policies and programs must incorporate disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation strategies that protect functional capacity, ensure continuity of care, and support place-based aging for older adults in vulnerable communities.

Public health practitioners and researchers should adopt equity- and rights-based approaches that recognize older adults as key stakeholders in disaster prevention and recovery, in addition to addressing structural determinants shaping unequal aging trajectories under climate change.

Background: Quilombola communities, Afro-descendant Brazilian rural settlements with collectivistic culture, have suffered historical invasions and non-legalization of their territories, exposure to environmental degradation/hazards, and educational and health care deprivation by the government. Global climate changes have increased sea levels and the occurrence of floods. This study presents original empirical findings from ongoing qualitative fieldwork in Quilombola communities in Southern Brazil that were severely affected by the 2024 floods, focusing on post-disaster quality of life, health impacts, and community coping strategies. These dimensions remain underexamined in public health and environmental justice research. Methods: Guided by interdisciplinary frameworks of environmental racism, intersectionality, and critical disaster studies, flooding is analyzed not as a natural hazard, but as a socially produced risk shaped by racialized territorial exclusion, historical marginalization, and chronic governance failures. Data were generated by household testimonies, community observations, and assessments of governmental disaster responses. Results: Fragmented disaster management, unequal access to infrastructure, and limited participatory governance mechanisms intensified vulnerability, constrained adaptive capacity, and exacerbated health inequities among Quilombola populations. Despite these constraints, communities demonstrated strong resilience grounded in traditional knowledge, local solidarity networks, and collective agency. Conclusions: The study underscores the urgent need for equity-centered environmental governance and inclusive disaster risk reduction strategies to address healthy aging inequities.