Climate Justice Strategies Implemented by Public Health Nurses and Their Community Partners

Aim

To describe nurses' and community-based organization representatives' collaborative strategies for advancing climate justice with communities.

Design

This study used a descriptive, qualitative research design.

Methods

Data were gathered from August 2022 to February 2023 with nurses (n = 8) and their community partners (n = 5) in the United States. Community partners were representatives of community-based organizations. Photovoice provided greater context for the thematic analysis of collaborative strategies discussed in semi-structured interviews.

Results

Nurse participants worked in academic or non-profit settings. Nurse-community partnerships addressed corporate pollution and promoted Indigenous sovereignty and multispecies justice. Themes included investigating disease and health events, identifying at-risk populations and connecting them with resources, providing health teaching and counseling, organizing communities and coalitions, and advocating for policy development and enforcement. Self-care supported resilience and well-being in the long struggle for climate justice.

Conclusion

Findings from this study indicated that nurses and their community partners strategize to transition communities away from systems of extraction towards local and regenerative systems that support resilience. Nurses and their community partners recognized the importance of applying an expansive understanding of climate justice, including intersections of pollution and multispecies justice, to promoting planetary health.

Implications for the profession

Findings from this study support nurse-community collaboration in policy work to advance planetary health. This study also supports nurses' collective action with their community partners to address the effects of white supremacy and colonization. Future research is needed to evaluate the outcomes of nurse-community partnerships for planetary health.

Impact

Nurses have called for action on climate justice; however, evidence of effective nursing strategies that advance climate justice is sparse. This study is the first to describe the collaborative strategies nurses implement with community partners to support the transition from injustice to justice in communities most burdened by climate change and industrial pollution.