Title:  Building Community Adaptations to Address Health Implications of Exposure to Environmental Changes
Presented by: Dr. Shanondora Billiot (United Houma Nation Citizen) 
Registration: HERE
Date: 28-May-2021

Bio: Dr. Billiot is an Early Career Fellow of the Gulf Research Program through the National  Academies of Sciences Medicine and Engineering. She is currently serving as a Technical Advisory Member of the Climate Change Taskforce for the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Her current research uses mixed methods to explore indigenous-specific sensitivities to global environmental change exposure and pathways to health outcomes within Indigenous populations with the goal to co-develop adaptation activities. She earned a PhD in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis as a Henry Roe Cloud fellow at Yale University.

Abstract of Presentation: 

Social determinants of health do not sufficiently explain high rates of poor health outcomes among Indigenous communities, which has led scholars to include environmental changes and historical trauma to examine intergenerational transmissions of health disparities. Indigenous peoples’ relationship with land is spiritual, cultural, and place-specific. Anthropogenic activities for development projects, such as natural resource extraction, damming, and dredging, have caused detrimental effects to the physical environment and have led to displacing Indigenous communities. 

Interruption of Indigenous Peoples’ ability to interact with land is a contemporary form of environmental injustice. This presentation will highlight shared cultural experiences of exposure to environmental changes, how subsistence communities, like indigenous communities, are impacted and the development of community-led-based adaptation activities.