Race & Health Podcast

Last November, members of Race & Health attended COP27 to discuss the intersection between racism, colonialism, climate change, and health. In this special two-part episode, we discuss our reflections on this experience. In Part 1, speakers from our previous episode on young climate activists rejoin us for our milestone event to discuss their perspectives on COPs.  Jon Bonifacio is an activist, musician, National Coordinator at Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment, and former National Coordinator of YACAP. Heizal Nagginda is a climate and environmental activist from Uganda. She is the founder  of Climate Operation a youth-led organisation that educates Ugandan  children about climate change as well as involve them in climate related  activism in form of tree planting activities. Priscila Sato, is a Lecturer at the School of Nutrition of the Federal University of Bahia, Race & Health collective member. Learn more about the Envisioning Environmental Equity project here. Watch our films here.  Transcription available here.

What is racism? How does it work and what impact does it have on our health?  On this special episode of the Race & Health Podcast, jointly hosted by The Lancet Voice, Delan joins co-Founder Sujitha Selvarajah, former UN Special Rapporteur on Racism Tendayi Achiume, and physician and medical anthropologist Gideon Lasco discuss their work on the Lancet Series on racism, xenophobia, discrimination and health. This Series draws connections between power, politics, colonialism, and our health, governed through health systems, our environemnt and communities, and our relationship with law, policies, and institutions. Learn more about this Series on the podcast, or find the Series in its entirey on https://thelancet.com. 

Trauma, grief, and mental health: climate change is disrupting our relationship with the environment as we know it, causing a sense of loss, sudden detachment, and depression - a set of experiences some refer to as solastalgia. In this episode of Race & Health, we discuss mental health and solastalgia with Land Body Ecologies (LBE), a research group that explores this concept with the Ogiek (Kenya), tribal communities in the buffer zone around the Bannerghatta National Park (India), northern Finnish border region communities including the Sámi, and the Batwa (Uganda). We hone into the colonial habits of intended solutions to climate change, such as conservation projects, and how resulting forced displacement has produced more harm for traditional and land dependent communities. Babitha George is an LBE partner at Quicksand, and is one of the co-founders of the UnBox Festival, leading on networks and collaborations bringing together efforts around social change, art and culture, thoughtful design and open research. IG: @BabeGeorge , @QuickSandStudio | Twitter: @UnwindingBlues , @HelloQS Daniel Kobei  is the founder and Executive Director of Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program (OPDP), an NGO in Kenya that promotes the human and land rights of the indigenous Ogiek and a core team member of the Land Body Ecologies project. Twitter: @kobskobei , @OgiekPeoples | IG: @ogiekpeoplesdevprogram Samrawit Gougsa is Head of Communications at Minority Rights Group International, an NGO working to safeguard the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples worldwide. She is interested in the social determinants of health among marginalised communities, and the intersection between land rights and mental health. Website: https://minorityrights.org/ | IG: @MinorityRightsGroup | Twitter: @SamGougsa , @MinorityRights Land Body Ecologies: IG: @LandBodyEcologies | Twitter: @LBecologies

Colonialism persists in many ways, including how waste is managed. In this episode, we discuss the relationship between waste colonialism, the climate crisis, and how these processes produce negative health outcomes for vulnerable communities predominantly in the global South. Join Alice Mah from the University of Warwick, Angelo Luow from Greenpeace, and Sonora English from Race & Health as they discuss how waste colonialism increases the production of plastic, the role of corporate power and the fossil fuel industry, and the social structures that perpetuate exposure to waste. Alice Mah is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, with research interests in environmental justice, corporate power, and toxic pollution. Her latest book is called Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It. Angelo Louw is an award-winning documentarian and climate justice activist. He is the Pan-African Plastic Project Lead at Greenpeace. Sonora English is a member of the Race & Health collective and a research assistant at UCL where she works on the Envisioning Environmental Equity initiative, a climate and racial justice collaboration.

The relationship between climate change and migration is complex. In this episode of the R&H Podcast, we discuss these complexities from an anti-discrimination perspective. How does racism, xenophobia, and discrimination define health inequalities in migrant communities, when does migrant status matter, and what can the health community do about this? Explore these questions with our guests, Báltica Cabieses, Maya Goodfellow, and R&H rep, Rita Issa, who brings expertise about migrant access to healthcare, conceptualising the “climate migrant”, and the health inequalities migrants face amidst the climate crisis. Báltica Cabieses is a nurse midwife and professor at Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile and former Co leader of Launced migration for Latin America. Maya Goodfellow is a Leverhume Early Career Researcher at the University of Sheffield. She is also author of the book, Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats. Rita Issa is a UK-based physician doing research on climate change, migration, and health. For more information about R&H's work, including our newsletter centred on migration, visit www.raceandhealth.org, and follow us on social media @RaceAndHealth

This episode explores how unequal health outcomes for minoritised communities are influenced by air pollution.Touching on causes and sources of air pollution, city design, measurement and research, Dr Anne Dorotheé Slovic from the University of São Paulo, Ms Lilian Latinwo-Olajide from Impact on Urban Health, and Dr Chetna Sharma from Race & Health discuss how structural racism is a driving force behind these unequal outcomes, and what climate justice means for our climate action in this space. Anne is an Adjunct Professor at the University of São Paulo School of Public Health who specialises in comparative urban studies, with an emphasis on global environmental health, sustainable public policy, and reducing inequalities.  Lilian is a Portfolio Manager at Impact on Urban Health. She co-leads the Amplifying voices programme strand on the health effects of Air Pollution.  Chetna is a medical doctor, training to be a public health specialist in London. She works with the Research and Public Engagement teams at Race & Health, and her areas of interest lie in climate and health justice, and intergenerational mental health.

In this episode, we explore the role of young people in the move against climate change, and the work they're doing to promote climate justice. Joined by Heizal Nagginda, founder of Climate Operation in Uganda, Priscila Sato, a researcher from the University of São Paolo, and Jon Bonifacio from Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP), host Delan Devakumar grapples with the role that climate education, justice, and advocacy by young people can have on equitably addressing climate change.  

In this first episode of the Envisioning Environmental Equity series, our host Delan Devakumar is joined by Race & Health representative Abi Deivanayagam, and external guests Mulindwa Moses, co-founder of CYE Believe, and Norly Mercado, Asia Regional Director at 350.org to discuss the meaning of “environmental justice”. Join us as we discuss the role of colonialism in shaping the unequal health impacts of the climate crisis, the value of MAPA-centred solutions, and the importance of considering power in climate action. Find out more about our guests: Mulindwa Moses, CYE Believe | Instagram: @mulindwa_guy CYE Believe: https://cyebelievenetwork.org/ Norly Mercado, Asia Regional Director at 350.org | Instagram: @350org | Website: https://350.org/about/

Introducing Series 2 of the Race & Health Podcast. This year, we'll be focusing on the importance of anti-racist, decolonial perspectives in the climate justice movement. The climate crisis does not impact us equally, nor do we benefit from climate action equally. To explore how racism shapes these inequities, this upcoming series will help name racism in climate health inequities. This focus reflects a broader organisational emphasis on climate justice for the next year, so please stay tuned for more information about how you can engage the climate crisis through anti-racist work! 

In this episode, we unpack why kidney disease is found at higher rates in Black communities in the US and UK, with a special emphasis on the practice of race correction in renal medicine. R&H representative Dr Rageshri Dhairyawan engages Dr Nwamaka Eneanya and Dr Viyaasan Mahlingasivam to discuss how baseline indicators that define renal health differ based on the patients’ race, and how these differences evolve into health disparities. Dr Nwamaka Eneanya is a nephrologist and assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at University of Pennsylvania, and Dr Viyaasan Mahlingasivam is an honorary consultant nephrologist with NHS and research fellow in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In this episode, we explore how casteism works as an underlying system of power, and its impact on environmental justice and health in India. Contextualised by sanitation work and environmental health, this episode details how casteism shapes disproportionate health outcomes experienced by Dalit communities, and the political nature around sanitation work. Join Delan as he and R&H representative Mita Huq engage these topics with  Dr Malini Ranganathan, an Associate Professor at American University who studies urban environmental racism and casteism, and Mr Kanthi Swaroop, a PhD candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay working on issues in manual scavenging through urban sociology.

Funding plays a central role in determining how and what health outcomes are addressed in public health, health research, and development. Where the money goes and how funding applications are processed remain disparate between end users. Join Delan Devakumar in exploring the structural causes that underlie funding disparities and inequities as he and R&H representative, Joohee Uhm, discuss the funding world with Ms Lauren Pires who has extensive experience with grant work at the non-profit and foundation levels,  and Dr Diego Baptista, whose career has moved research culture towards equity and diversity. Transcripts for this episode will be provided soon for greater accessibility.

On this episode of the Race & Health Podcast we discuss the definitions and impact of structural racism with Dr Michelle Morse, Dr Rochelle Burgess, and Dr Kavian Kulasabanathan. Using the release of the Sewell Report, we explore how a structural perspective shapes policies, experiences, and disparities across public health outcomes. 

In this episode of the R&H Podcast, our featured R&H representative, Dr Rageshri Dhairyawan and invited guest, Ms Bakita Kasadha, walks us through racism’s effect on treating and understanding HIV in the United Kingdom. Bakita draws from her experiences working with the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, WHO’s Global Validation Advisory Committee, and her writings for NAM aidsmap. Together, we explore how racism suppresses the very process of health research and services designed to combat ill health; and how ultimately, pervasive issues of misrepresentation, stereotypes, and stigma stand between HIV care and those who need it. Find the audio transcription for this episode here.

Join host Dr Delan Devakumar and Race & Health collective member Dr Abi Deivanayagam in conversation with environmental justice advocate and Executive Director at Amazon Watch, Leila Salazar-Lopez, and Dr Sandra de Souza Hacon from the National School of Public Health at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation as we begin to understand the complex relationship between indigenous health in the Amazon, and the intertwined systems of meat, gold, racism, and deforestation. In this episode, indigenous health and human rights takes centre stage in highlighted issues of deforestation and colonialism happening in the rapidly shrinking Amazon rainforest. This episode invites lessons from environmental justice and public health to inform our thinking about the interconnectedness of our actions, environmental racism, and indigenous health. We’ll touch on an array of topics such as individual purchasing, corporate responsibility, and the systems that shape health inequity in the Amazon. For more information on deforestation in the Amazon and ways to stand up for indigenous rights, visit https://amazonwatch.org/.

About R&H: Our goal is to reduce the adverse effects of discrimination that lead to poor health. Race & Health is a collective of academics, artists,  activists, policy makers, grassroots organisations and individuals. We are a catalyst striving to achieve equitable health for all by investigating the impact of racism and discrimination on health and interventions that improve equitable wellbeing. Join us. Want to know more about our collective? Visit www.raceandhealth.org for more information.