Climate, marginalization, and mental health in Canada
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Sociology, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Prisk, Dan
issued: 2024-08-09T20:37:16Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Climate change is regarded as the most significant threat to human health in this century. There is a growing consensus that high temperatures in particular have a significant, negative effect on mental health outcomes. Work in environmental justice has shown the unequal distribution of the impacts of climate change, people who are already experiencing social marginalization tend to experience the worst effects. In this thesis, I explore climate change and health in Canada by asking if air temperature affects mental health, and testing for effect variation across three primary dimensions of social marginalization—race, gender, and income. Using a custom dataset that brings together historical weather data and survey data from the Canadian Community Health Survey, I use multivariate models to estimate the effects of absolute and relative temperature on two measures of mental health. I fail to find robust evidence for a relationship between temperature and mental health, and find none for the differential impact of temperature on mental health by race, gender, or income. These results challenge a growing body of research which shows that temperature is significantly correlated with negative mental health outcomes.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88916
note: CLIMATE, MARGINALIZATION, AND MENTAL HEALTH IN CANADAbyDan PriskB.A Hons. Simon Fraser University, 2020A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF ARTSinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES(Sociology)THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA(Vancouver)August 2024© Dan Prisk, 2024 iiThe following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled:Climate, Marginalization, and Mental Health in Canadasubmitted by Dan Prisk in partial fulfilment of the requirements forthe degree of Master of Artsin SociologyExamining Committee:Ethan Raker, Assistant Professor, Sociology, UBCSupervisor Gerry Veenstra, Professor, Sociology, UBCSupervisory Committee Member iiiABSTRACTClimate change is regarded as the most significant threat to human health in this century. There isa growing consensus that high temperatures in particular have a significant, negative effect on mental health outcomes. Work in environmental justice has shown the unequal distribution of theimpacts of climate change, people who are already experiencing social marginalization tend to experience the worst effects. In this thesis, I explore climate change and health in Canada by asking if air temperature affects mental health, and testing for effect variation across three primary dimensions of social marginalization—race, gender, and income. Using a custom datasetthat brings together historical weather data and survey data from the Canadian Community Health Survey, I use multivariate models to estimate the effects of absolute and relative temperature on two measures of mental health. I fail to find robust evidence for a relationship between temperature and mental health, and find none for the differential impact of temperature on mental health by race, gender, or income. These results challenge a growing body of research which shows that temperature is significantly correlate…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0445040
language: eng
degree discipline: Sociology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Raker, Ethan
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88916