In resource‐dependent communities such as fishing communities, human health underpins the ability of individuals and families to maintain viable livelihoods. Fishing is a dangerous occupation, in which fishers are exposed to health risks both on and offshore. Many of these risks and associated health concerns also extend to fishing families and wider communities. Despite the importance of health, there is a lack of understanding of the breadth of health issues affecting people associated with fishing. This study presents the findings of a scoping review of peer‐reviewed literature that identifies the range of health issues and health determinants studied in fishing communities around the world. The findings reveal a wide variety of documented health issues, but with greater emphasis on physical health and occupational and behavioral factors, with limited attention paid to mental health. The majority of studies focused on fishers themselves, as opposed to other subgroups within fishing communities. Geographic differences in the health topics investigated highlight prevalent concerns and offer potential to share insights and solutions across contexts. The breadth of findings illustrates the complexity of health for people dependent on fishing, and the relevance of the many health determinants in maintaining viable fishing communities. We propose that a social well‐being approach offers an integrative lens through which a better understanding of human health in fisheries can be achieved and used to inform fisheries management that is ecologically and socially sustainable.
It is widely suggested that migration is a key mechanism linking climate change to violent conflict, particularly through migration increasing the risks of conflict in urban destinations. Yet climate change also creates new forms of insecurity through distress migration, immobility and vulnerability that are prevalent in urban destination locations. Here we examine the extent and nature of human security in migration destinations and test whether insecurity is affected by length of residence and environmental hazards. The study develops an index measure of human security at the individual level to include environmental and climate-related hazards as well as sources of well-being, fear of crime and violence, and mental health outcomes. It examines the elements of human security that explain the prevalence of insecurity among recent and established migrants in low-income urban neighbourhoods. The study reports on data collected in Chattogram in Bangladesh through a survey of migrants (N = 447) and from qualitative data derived using photo elicitation techniques with cohorts of city planners and migrants. The results show that environmental hazards represent an increasing source of perceived insecurity to migrant populations over time, with longer-term migrants perceiving greater insecurity than more recent arrivals, suggesting lack of upward social mobility in low-income slums. Ill-health, fear of eviction, and harassment and violence are key elements of how insecurity is experienced, and these are exacerbated by environmental hazards such as flooding. The study expands the concept of security to encompass central elements of personal risk and well-being and outlines the implications for climate change.
Fishing is a challenging occupation, in which physical and mental health risks may be exacerbated by environmental, socio-economic and policy change. While anecdotal information suggests that compared to other groups fishers are less likely to access healthcare, the reasons for this are poorly understood. Constraints to accessing healthcare were assessed through a mixed methods approach, using a holistic framework of access. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 119 commercial fishers in Cornwall, UK, and complemented by qualitative focus groups with women from fishing communities. Health issues experienced and perceived constraints to healthcare access differed among fishers. Organisational factors and social norms were the most commonly perceived constraints, and stronger perception of these was associated with greater likelihood of leaving a health concern untreated in the past year. The findings suggest that proactive steps are needed to enhance supply and utilisation of available healthcare services, to ensure fishers' needs are met.
Addressing sources and drivers of precarity among marginalized migrant populations in urban spaces is central to making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable for all. Yet dominant policy discourses continue to frame migrants as problematic causes of insecurity and tend to exclude them from policy processes. Deliberative democratic theory suggests that inclusive processes have the potential to create innovative solutions for resilient cities. This study elicits and reports on self‐identified sources of precarity and insecurity as experienced by new low‐income migrant populations. It combines visual ethnography and deliberative democracy tools in an action research process that facilitated dialogue between migrant populations, urban planners and policy stakeholders. The objective is to elicit policy opportunities and constraints for changing dominant discourses, with a view to enhance marginalized lives and to implement sustainable urban infrastructure in Chattogram, the second largest city of Bangladesh. The results show options for addressing precarity, developed through facilitating migrants and planners to engage with each other’s perspectives. Priorities include focusing on insecure tenure, exposure to environmental hazards, and representation in planning processes. Integrating the perspectives and lived experiences of migrant urban populations into policy processes potentially leads to more effective, sustainable and legitimate solutions.
The science of resilience suggests that urban systems become resilient when they promote progressive transformative change to social and physical infrastructure. But resilience is challenged by global environmental risks and by social and economic trends that create inequality and exclusion. Here we argue that distortionary inequality and precarity undermine social processes that give access to public infrastructure and ecosystems thereby undermining urban resilience. We illustrate how inequality and precarity undermine resilience with reference to social exclusion and insecurity in growing urban settlements in the Asia-Pacific region. Inequality and exposure to environmental risks represent major challenges for governance that can be best overcome through inclusion and giving voice to marginalised populations.
This article responds to a gap in existing research on access to environmental spaces in rural and coastal areas, especially of less advantaged members of society who could potentially benefit the most from exposure to such environments but face a whole host of constraints. We build on existing theorisations of access to natural resources and ecosystem services in the development literature and integrate insights from the sociology of access to environmental spaces, health geography and environmental psychology in industrialised contexts. We employ semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation with socioeconomically disadvantaged respondents in Cornwall, UK. Participants' accounts reveal four mechanisms that mediate access to ecosystem benefits: rights-based, physical, structural and relational, and psychosocial, and we thus extend Ribot and Peluso's access framework. We conclude that socioeconomic disadvantage mediates access to environmental spaces, in particular through psychosocial mechanisms, and highlight the interlinked and complementary nature of the four types of access mechanisms.
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