Diseases & Structural Violence

The intention of this audio project is to discuss the links between systems and imaginations rooted in supremacy, the dysregulation of planetary systems, and the poor health outcomes being experienced by peoples who are racialised and minoritised.

What is often missing from the conversation is how environmental hazards, due to being an experience of stress and trauma can lead to mental distress.

This report looks at how an ecological healing system can mean that we create pathways for everyday healing rather than waiting for the onset of disease.

The key takeaway is that sex and gender are one way of conceptualising a complex ecosystem made up of multiple cells and microbes which digests, reproduces, thinks, and loves, rather than a universal truth.

When people can no longer use their home to heal and feel that they are in a place of rest, they are at greater risk of not restoring. The home in the case of higher costs is no longer a healer but a harmer.

As planetary dysregulation continues without systemic intervention, the threat to children’s health will continue to rise. It seems redundant to say, but we should prioritise the health of children as they are our future ancestors, who have imaginations and futures to fulfil. 

Depression is recognised as ‘a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease’ and has both a complex aetiology and symptomatology. It is often framed as a mental health problem, however, the more we understand the more we uncover its physical symptomology.

Simply saying Black or Indigenous Peoples experience Type 2 Diabetes at a higher rate, leaves room for further racialisation as it could add to the narrative of genetic determinism, which blames a person’s biological make-up for disease rather than considering ecological factors.

It's becoming increasingly clear that the relationship between human health and disease is a complex and dynamic interplay between the physical and social environment and the body.

This report will take an ecological approach, focusing on the bidirectional pathway between trauma and obesity to highlight the disparity between scientific evidence and communication around obesity, as well as the psychosocial factors that contribute to, and maintain, this disparity.

There is a need to understand the history behind framing health as individual choices or behaviours to better appreciate why an ecological health approach looks like and its significance in eradicating health inequities.

This open-letter is a list of our thoughts and concerns based from attending a public meeting held between Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, Public Health England, Staffordshire County Council, the Environment Agency, and the community where Walleys Quarry Landfill site is located.

This document will look at how industry gaslights communities, the mistakes science makes, and the significance of listening and acknowledging the lived experience. This report is for both practitioners and citizens who are experiencing environmental and health injustice.

In this essay, we will be detailing the pathways of oppression, including the role that science, policy, and city organisers play. 

A stressor is defined as a novel threatening environmental agent that alters the baseline human biological system in either of two ways: bringing the system to an unstable biological state, or slowing down the system’s internal response so that it cannot reach equilibrium.

In the context of Covid-19, air pollution presents a particularly insidious hazard given that the disease affects respiratory and cardio-vascular systems.

There are various problems with targeting a community based on their race, specifically in the context of health. To say “Black community” or “Indigenous Community” is a misnomer as it doesn’t see the person to place relationship, which is essential to understanding health.

In any given area, there will be people who are suffering greatly from the consequences of air pollution whilst others may not see any consequences. This phenomenon is worth understanding, rather than dismissing it as not statistically significant.

This paper looks to approach the inequitable prevalence of COVID-19 from a biological perspective, drawing a clear throughline between human health and urban environments. Specifically, its relation to COVID-19 in BAME communities of London.

This report is the result of a co-designed and produced community-led scientific study highlighting the susceptibility of the Southall community and the need for stricter air pollution guidelines.

PTSD is growing in urban environments and its prevalence is disproportionately higher within impoverished neighbourhoods. Our research question is: are some urban environments so inadequate they can cause physical and psychological trauma?