Photo voice as a participatory approach to influence climate related health policy in the Sundarbans

Abstract

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report highlights community-based strategies to drive effective and ecologically sustainable local adaptation strategies. A climate change hot spot, Sundarbans, India, needs collective action between communities and for local level health and non-health decision makers to find sustainable solutions to combat the impacts of climate change on child health. In our photovoice study, mothers examined mediating factors by which climate change was impacting their child's health. Over 80 mothers with at least one child aged 0–6 years took photographs to document the impact of climate change on factors affecting child health. During facilitated fortnightly group meetings, mothers identified and categorised the major factors affecting their children's health. Participants collectively selected the photographs most reflective of the mediating factors and presented their findings to the local and state health administrations to identify mutually agreeable solutions. Mothers identified five mediating factors. These included food security, livelihood, water and sanitation, accessibility of the health-care system, and breaching of embankments. The findings were presented by the mothers to community-level and state-level policy makers. The interactions resulted in the initiation of resilient road infrastructure, increased human resource availability in primary health centres during floods, and local government representatives demanding long-term adaptation strategies to address climate impacts. Child health is affected by climate change through multiple pathways. Participatory approaches like photo voice can be used effectively to reflect ground level experiences of climate-vulnerable communities, empower them, and provide a collaborative and inclusive platform to design policies and initiatives for the creation of climate resilient health systems and communities. Funding Future Health System Research consortium funded by DFID. Contributors UG drafted the abstract which was modified by BS and SB. UG and SB are the co-investigators of the study. BS is the supervising author. Declaration of interests We declare no competing interests.