By Cynthia Golembeski, Ans Irfan, Michael Méndez, Amite Dominick, Rasheera Dopson, and Julie Skarha
People with disabilities — one of the most climate vulnerable groups — are often overlooked before, during, and in the aftermath of disasters.
Structural competency, which accounts for systemic “level determinants, biases, inequities, and blind spots,” is important to mitigating environmental racism and ableism in climate change and disaster policy. To achieve such intersectional approaches, the social determinants of health provide a useful framework. It explains how conditions, forces, and systems, including poverty, discrimination, underlying health disparities, and governance, not only shape daily life but also vulnerability to climate-induced disasters (Figure 1). Decreasing vulnerability requires understanding and addressing upstream root causes of health inequities.
Figure 1 (adapted). Intersection of Social Determinants of Health and Vulnerability: ‘Social determinants of health interact with the three elements of vulnerability. The left side boxes provide examples of social determinants of health associated with each of the elements of vulnerability. Increased exposure, increased sensitivity and reduced adaptive capacity all affect vulnerability at different points in the causal chain from climate drivers to health outcomes (middle boxes). Adaptive capacity can influence exposure and sensitivity and also can influence the resilience of individuals or populations experiencing health impacts by influencing access to care and preventive services. The right side boxes provide illustrative examples of the implications of social determinants on increased exposure, increased sensitivity, and reduced adaptive capacity.’
For example, climate-induced risks and related economic costs disproportionately harm Black people in historically redlined communities experiencing white flight in the South. People living in low-lying neighborhoods that lack adequate green space, sewer or stormwater infrastructure, insurance coverage, and access to FEMA and other disaster aid programs overwhelmingly face flood and drought exposure.
Image 1. Mississippi River floods over roadways. (Source: Rachel via Adobe Stock.)
In Jackson, Mississippi, where 80% of the population is Black, poverty levels are high (a function of structural racism), and 1 in 3 adults report having a disability, the harms of climate change-related flooding, droughts, and lack of safe drinking water were exacerbated last year by legacy of infrastructure deficits.
In Texas, geography professor Jayajit Chakraborty found that people with disabilities live disproportionately closer to the co-pollutants of climate change (i.e. Particulate Matter emissions and Volatile Organic Compounds) from fossil fuel burning, including gas flaring. Notably, applying an intersectional lens of analysis, he found that aging people with disabilities live even closer to environmental pollution sources.
Image 2. Gas flaring, the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction, in the Texas Bayport Industrial District. (Source: Jim Evans via Creative Commons License.)
Also in Texas, winter storm Uri in 2021 adversely impacted millions of people with disabilities, particularly those dependent on home medical devices, leaving them without heat or electricity and poor access to water, transportation, health care, and emergency services. Moreover, deregulation of the energy sector owing to the violence of neoliberalism, and inadequate power plant and weather line weatherization and disaster planning in Texas disproportionately harmed people with disabilities.
Populations within prisons provide another illustration of how structural vulnerabilities intersect amid the climate crisis. Advocacy and research increasingly address incarceration’s intersection with disability and aging. Greater mental and physical health challenges persist for people aging in place in prisons, a group that is overrepresented by people of color, people with disabilities, and people of lower socioeconomic status. Experts in correctional health care, academic medicine, nursing, and civil rights address knowledge gaps and propose policy agendas to improve the care of prisoners facing intersecting inequities and respective harms.
Image 3. Cecil Williams and Clark Morse at the Northern Nevada Correctional Compound in 2012. They became best friends after meeting in prison. (Source: Ron Levine, ‘Prisoners of Age.’)
Heat exposure within prisons is a key area of focus for advocates, political officials, and researchers. For example, a 2022 research study shows that compared to the U.S. general population, there is a 30-fold increase in heat-related deaths in prisons without air conditioning in Texas. In fact, researchers found on average more than ten deaths a year can be attributed to heat exposure in prisons without air conditioning. Texas Prisons Community Advocates (TPCA)’s 85 To Stay Alive campaign works to improve temperature control oversight and reduce extreme temperature exposure within correctional institutions.
This past June, 32 deaths occurred within Texas prisons with temperatures exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has not reported a heat-related death since 2012. TPCA helped introduce at least five bills requiring the Department of Criminal Justice to install air conditioners or maintain temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees. Historically, House Bill 1708, requiring Texas prisons to remain between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit, made it past the House, yet the bill died in the Texas Senate Committee on Finance.
Community-engaged research approaches to advancing disability justice, such as critical disability theory, and climate justice are urgently needed. Understanding and addressing differential climate impacts on people with disabilities can decrease exclusion and inaccessibility and improve overall climate governance and disaster planning, response, and recovery not only for people with disabilities, but for everyone. In this sense, researchers also play a critical role in supporting disability-inclusive climate resilience.
Legal scholars Penelope and Michael Stein recommend researchers ought to strengthen and use disability data; collaborate with people with disabilities; and support strategic litigation and disability-inclusive climate action. Similarly, prioritizing disabled people’s inclusion, engagement, and leadership enhances science overall. Mobilizing people with disabilities as change agents and leaders supports the integration of disability justice into climate and disaster preparedness policies and practices worldwide.
Image 4. An Earth Day demonstration in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Source: Carolina Jaramillo via Adobe Stock.)
Governments are often falling short of this vision. However, there are some best practices that are important to highlight, Such as federal efforts, alongside local resilience hubs and county-level long-term recovery groups, which address climate crisis response, recovery, and resource needs. The National Association of County Health Officials guides local U.S. health departments in supporting and ensuring the safety of people with disabilities during disasters.
Image 5. Forest fires in the Congo Basin of Central Africa, the planet’s second green lung after the Amazon. (Source: toa55 via Adobe Stock.)
Krystal Vazquez cites examples of inaccessible emergency communication to people who are blind and deaf, and shelters neglecting the needs of people with disabilities. Vazquez, a science journalist who identifies as a disabled woman of color, further adds:
“A disability should not be a death sentence, but it often is when catastrophe strikes.”
Climate justice, in all its multifaceted complexity, is disability justice, and vice versa. Centering the voices, experiences, and expertise of people with disabilities through a structural justice lens that accounts for the compounding social and structural determinants of health, climate vulnerability, and disabilities is critical for improving disaster planning, response, and recovery for generations to come. Such collaborative networks inclusive of embodied expertise are essential to addressing the climate crisis. Community-engaged multiscalar approaches to advancing disability and climate justice are urgently needed during this current global climate crisis. Understanding and addressing climate impact differentials on people with disabilities can decrease exclusion and inaccessibility and improve overall climate governance and disaster planning, response, and recovery.
Human rights protections and the right to health of people with disabilities are only possible through compacts, agreements, community-based leadership, and governmental support that leads to material policy, systems, and environmental change rooted in justice and equity. Observing the nexus of climate-disability justice across the intersectional lived experiences from poverty, incarceration, racialized identities, linguistic oppression, to aging, and so on is, in and of itself, insufficient. We must move towards a politics of action and accountability and foster a practice of collectivities rooted in translating observations to tangible benefits for those structurally marginalized by the duopoly of climate and disability injustices.
Cynthia Golembeski is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar and affiliated with The New School Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy.
Ans Irfan is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California and a Harvard Divinity School fellow.
Michael Méndez, PhD, is assistant professor of environmental planning and policy at the University of California at Irvine, and a visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
Amite Dominick is President and Founder of Texas Prisons Community Advocates.
Rasheera Dopson is the founder of Beauty with a Twist and The Dopson Foundation Inc, which are both dedicated to creating spaces of inclusion for women and girls with disabilities.
Julie Skarha, a 2022 PhD graduate of the Brown University Department of Epidemiology, studies extreme heat in prisons and jails.
