Driving Climate and Health Solutions by Building a Collective Impact Culture

Abstract The article explores how Victorian visual culture was a vital force in the construction and dissemination of medical theories on the connection between climate and health. During the nineteenth century, the seemingly inexplicable and deadly nature of many epidemic diseases compelled British medics to investigate all possible reasons for their spread. Focusing on cholera, the article will examine how, in an effort to understand what was seen at the time as a mysterious disease, Victorian medics increasingly concentrated on the climate of India and unusual weather in Britain as propagators of the malady. Supplementing the dominant miasma theory, medics explained how the seemingly airborne sources of cholera resulted from a state of England’s air that resembled the tropical environment of the subcontinent. In an effort to highlight the correlation between cholera and the atmosphere, they produced medical climatology reports containing diagrams that juxtaposed the data on the disease’s mortality rates with measurements of meteorological phenomena. These images, rather than serving simply as illustrations, became a crucial part of medical arguments. As the article will demonstrate, in attempting to visualize the medical climatology of cholera, the diagrams mapped the disease to certain atmospheric conditions, suggesting that cholera could be quantified and controlled. Yet, in doing so, the images also implied that cholera had a real material presence in the air of Britain, powerfully evoking visual tropes of the disease as a substance that had the potential to contaminate the very landscape of the nation.

Download Full-text

Public perceptions of Lyme disease and climate change in southern Manitoba, Canada: making a case for strategic decoupling of climate and health messages

BMC Public Health ◽

10.1186/s12889-021-10614-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Laura Cameron ◽

Rhéa Rocque ◽

Kailey Penner ◽

Ian Mauro

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Climate Change ◽

Risk Perception ◽

Lyme Disease ◽

Risk Perceptions ◽

Public Discourse ◽

Behavioural Change ◽

Health Messages ◽

Urban Rural ◽

Climate And Health

Abstract Background Despite scientific evidence that climate change has profound and far reaching implications for public health, translating this knowledge in a manner that supports citizen engagement, applied decision-making, and behavioural change can be challenging. This is especially true for complex vector-borne zoonotic diseases such as Lyme disease, a tick-borne disease which is increasing in range and impact across Canada and internationally in large part due to climate change. This exploratory research aims to better understand public risk perceptions of climate change and Lyme disease in order to increase engagement and motivate behavioural change. Methods A focus group study involving 61 participants was conducted in three communities in the Canadian Prairie province of Manitoba in 2019. Focus groups were segmented by urban, rural, and urban-rural geographies, and between participants with high and low levels of self-reported concern regarding climate change. Results Findings indicate a broad range of knowledge and risk perceptions on both climate change and Lyme disease, which seem to reflect the controversy and complexity of both issues in the larger public discourse. Participants in high climate concern groups were found to have greater climate change knowledge, higher perception of risk, and less skepticism than those in low concern groups. Participants outside of the urban centre were found to have more familiarity with ticks, Lyme disease, and preventative behaviours, identifying differential sources of resilience and vulnerability. Risk perceptions of climate change and Lyme disease were found to vary independently rather than correlate, meaning that high climate change risk perception did not necessarily indicate high Lyme disease risk perception and vice versa. Conclusions This research contributes to the growing literature framing climate change as a public health issue, and suggests that in certain cases climate and health messages might be framed in a way that strategically decouples the issue when addressing climate skeptical audiences. A model showing the potential relationship between Lyme disease and climate change perceptions is proposed, and implications for engagement on climate change health impacts are discussed.

Download Full-text

Integrating Trauma-Informed Care and Collective Impact: Perspectives of Service Providers Working with Cross-System Youth

Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research ◽

10.1086/712960 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 000-000

Author(s):

Annahita Ball ◽

Elizabeth A. Bowen ◽

Annette Semanchin Jones

Keyword(s):

Service Providers ◽

Collective Impact ◽

Trauma Informed Care ◽

Trauma Informed ◽

Cross System

Download Full-text

The Incidence of Social Responsibility in the Adoption of Business Practices

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13052794 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 2794 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Felipe Arenas-Torres ◽

Miguel Bustamante-Ubilla ◽

Roberto Campos-Troncoso

Keyword(s):

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Correlation Coefficient ◽

Collective Impact ◽

Business Practices ◽

Socially Relevant ◽

Corporate Social

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies are evidenced by adopting socially relevant business practices for people, communities, companies, and related institutions. Based on this conception, the present work determines the incidence of ethics and CSR on practices regarding diversity, environment, and community of Chilean companies. The method, applied to a sample of 3179 Chilean companies, was descriptive and correlational. Results demonstrate an incipient level of standardization in the adoption of social responsibility practices. The dimension regarding diversity presented a higher cumulative correlation coefficient, which could lead to a change in CSR practices. It is concluded that the collective impact of the ethics and CSR policies was positive and significant in the adoption of practices related to diversity, environment, and community.

Download Full-text