“Perceptions of urban environmental health: narrating political ecologies of disease” panel in DOPE conference, University of Kentucky

Focusing on discourse and perceptions, this panel will advance discussions on the extent to which health issues can also be social constructions utilized with particular political motives. Participating papers include topics of disease related to waste, urban hygiene, food-related health risks and autism; all looked at through the multidisciplinary lens of political ecology and interrogating themes on:

• Politics of risk communication
• Diverse and conflicting perceptions of health and (un)healthy behaviors
• Moral geographies and construction of health discourses Ç
• 'Beastly racialization’ (as combined discriminatory discourses)
• Constructions of healthy spaces: the urban versus the rural
• Environmental health justice: co-producing epidemiological knowledge
• Moving towards contextualized and empowering health education(s)