Promoting Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Social Work Practice in Rural Community: A Systematic Review

Haorui Wu, Meredith Greig and Catherine Bryan
Additional contact information
Haorui Wu: School of Social Work, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada
Meredith Greig: School of Social Work, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada
Catherine Bryan: School of Social Work, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-22

Abstract: Social work’s response to global climate change has dramatically increased over the last several years. Similarly, growing attention has been paid to rural social work; less clear, however, is how social work, responsive to global climate change, is developed, deployed, and understood in rural contexts; this systematic review elaborates on current social work contributions (research, practice, and policymaking), promoting environmental justice and sustainability in rural communities. Utilizing the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) approach, this article thematically analyzed and synthesized 174 journal articles on social work-specific interventions and environmental justice. The results illustrate insights into the experiences, practices, or objectives of rural social workers vis-à-vis climate change. Significant themes from the literature demonstrated that gender, age, and race limited access to social work services and climate-related disaster response support in rural settings; this article argues that rural community-driven social work practices focused on environmental justice and sustainability should be encouraged and that policy advocacy attentive to climate change and its impact on vulnerable and marginalized groups should be pursued. Current and prospective social work scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders should collaborate with local rural communities to address their unique needs related to climate change. In turn, grassroots strategies should be co-developed to promote climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, ultimately achieving the goal of building resilient, healthy, and sustainable rural communities.

Keywords: rural community; climate change adaptation; disaster risk reduction; agricultural-based livelihood; social work; sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/8/336/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/8/336/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:8:p:336-:d:874533

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().