Lived Experience of Climate Change and The Impact on Health and Health Inequalities: A systematic review of qualitative studies from the UK

Climate change is one of the biggest threats to public health in the 21st century. To date little action has been undertaken globally to mitigate the risks of climate change. The aim of this systematic review is to synthesise the qualitative literature on people’s and the health care systems’ lived experiences of climate change with a focus on health and health inequalities. We employed a narrative synthesis approach utilising a chronological perspective to frame the results. Seven electronic databases were searched for eligible studies which included Academic Search Ultimate; CINAHL; Embase; MEDLINE; PsycINFO; PubMed; Scopus; and Web of Science. The primary outcomes were lived experiences of the health/health inequalities effects of climate change. We identified 473 original records and eight papers met the inclusion criteria. Study quality was assessed by the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme for qualitative research. Seven studies focused on extreme weather events related to climate change with six of these looking at flooding and one at heat waves. One study examined perceptions and practice of people working in public health to adapting to climate change. Overall the results show challenges with perceiving and identifying risks of climate change which impact on preparedness for extreme weather events. The social determinants of health such as gender, housing, and community cohesion impact on people’s experience of climate change potentially exacerbating inequalities. Social capital and how widespread the extreme weather event was in the community impact on how people feel after the event and the rebuilding process. Trust in local government was also a key factor in shaping people’s perception of recovery. These findings can be used to help frame the dialogue around climate change mitigation and adaption to reduce the negative health and health inequality impacts.