Health as the Embodiment of Climate Inequity: Evidence from Communities of Color in Greater Boston

Authors

• Katsyris Rivera Kientz, College of Liberal Arts, University of Massachusetts,Boston
• Lorena Estrada-Martínez, University of Massachusetts BostonFollow
• Rosalyn Negrón, Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Boston.
• Nyingilanyeofori Hannah Brown, University of Massachusetts,BostonFollow
• Racheal Inegbedion, University of Massachusetts BostonFollow
• Chidimma Ozor Commer, University of Massachusetts BostonFollow
• Mahesh Admankar, Laurence Simon Department of Economics, School of Liberal Arts & Humanities, Woxsen University, Hyderabad 502345, IndiaFollow
• Adanna Kalejaye, University of Massachusetts BostonFollow
• Nicholas H. Johnson, University of Massachusetts,BostonFollow
• Nitin Singh, University of Massachusetts BostonFollow
• Paul Watanabe, University of Massachusetts BostonFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-10-2026

Keywords

Climate Change; Climate Justice; Social Determinants of Health; Health Inequities; Environmental Justice; Communities of Color; Embodiment

Disciplines

Environmental Public Health | Environmental Studies | Inequality and Stratification | Medicine and Health | Mental and Social Health | Place and Environment | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies | Race and Ethnicity | Social Justice

Abstract

Climate change poses uneven health risks across racially and ethnically diverse communities. This qualitative study examined how Asian American, Black, Latinx, and Native American residents of Greater Boston understood climate-related health risks and how those experiences reflected broader structural inequities. We analyzed eight race- and community-stratified focus groups conducted in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. Guided by theories of embodiment and informed by relational and climate justice perspectives, we treated health as evidence of how climate change operates through unequal infrastructures and historically produced social relations. Participants consistently described climate change through health pathways including heat-related illness, respiratory disease, chronic stress, food insecurity, and disrupted access to healthcare. These pathways were shaped by housing quality, energy burden, transportation, neighborhood conditions, healthcare access, and preparedness. Participants also connected climate vulnerability to racialized disinvestment, colonial dispossession, resource extraction, migration, and unequal institutional protection. Although the mechanisms of harm were broadly shared, their meanings varied across communities in relation to place, governance, migration, displacement, and relationships to land. The findings show that climate change becomes embodied through cumulative, relational, and structurally patterned processes rather than isolated exposures or differences in awareness. Reducing climate-related health inequities requires interventions that address the historical, material, and institutional conditions shaping exposure, protection, care, and recovery.

Comments

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Community Engaged/Serving

Part of the UMass Boston Community-Engaged Teaching, Research, and Service Series. //scholarworks.umb.edu/engage

Recommended Citation

Rivera Kientz, Katsyris; Estrada-Martínez, Lorena; Negrón, Rosalyn; Brown, Nyingilanyeofori Hannah; Inegbedion, Racheal; Ozor Commer, Chidimma; Admankar, Mahesh; Kalejaye, Adanna; Johnson, Nicholas H.; Singh, Nitin; and Watanabe, Paul, "Health as the Embodiment of Climate Inequity: Evidence from Communities of Color in Greater Boston" (2026). Sustainable Solutions Lab. 17.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/ssl/17

Publisher

SSM - Qualitative Research in Health