This Fireside Chat is a partnership between Canadian Network for Human Health and the Environment and CHNET-Works!
http://www.chnet-works.ca
In this Fireside Chat we bring together two disparate bodies of scholarship – climate change and Indigenous health – to identify and characterize challenges to adaptation to the health effects of climate change among Indigenous peoples. We focus on Canada’s Aboriginal population, whose experience of continuing and pervasive socio-political-health inequality confronts the notion that developed nations will be insulated from the worst effects of climate change.
 
While opportunities exist to prevent, reduce and manage the effects of climate change, five key challenges are likely to constrain action in absence of intervention: information, poverty and income disparity, technological capacity, socio-political values and inequality, and institutional capacity.
 
Overcoming these challenges requires a new public health movement focusing on collaboration and cooperation between policy makers, scientists, health professionals, and Aboriginal peoples, and a focus on capacity building at local, regional, and federal levels.
Ultimately, efforts to reduce vulnerability and adapt to climate change will fail unless the broader social determinants of Aboriginal health and existing health inequalities are addressed.
 
Advisors on Tap:
Dr James D. Ford
Assistant Professor, McGill University, Dept. of Geography
 
Bio:
Dr James D. Ford, is an assistant professor in geography at McGill University.
Dr Ford works with Aboriginal communities on climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning, and received a major award from the Canadian government for his innovative community based research.
A Nobel Prize winner as a contributing author to the IPCC fourth assessment report, he is currently focusing on public health in a changing climate among Canada’s Aboriginal population.
He has also worked closely with Aboriginal organizations and government agencies on climate change adaptation planning.