Climate change mitigation policy for planetary health equity? An automated content analysis of countries’ nationally determined contribution reports

This study examines the extent to which national governments discuss the social determinants of
planetary health equity (SDPHE) within their Nationally Determined Contribution reports
(NDCs) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This is assessed relative to the
frequency of discussion of economic factors and health outcomes, and how this varies between
countries based on political, economic, and environmental factors. Using natural language
processing, a dictionary-based automated content analysis was conducted of the frequency of
terms within these reports. Correlation analyses examined the relationship between the frequency
of dictionary categories and political, economic, and environmental variables to ascertain the role
of contextual factors. Overall, NDCs were found to feature a greater proportion of economic
language compared to health outcome and SDPHE terms. Among the SDPHE, equity- and
gender-related terms occurred most frequently. Correlations were identified primarily among
high-income countries, that suggest moderate positive associations between levels of CO2
emissions per capita and per dollar of gross domestic product and the use of economic terms, and a
negative association of economic language with levels of democracy. Democracy was also positively
associated with language related to social norms such as equity and justice, indicating potential
scope for impact through democratic pressures. The relatively frequent use of economic frames in
NDCs suggests that economic issues may receive more attention compared to the SDPHE. This
analysis identifies potential enabling and constraining country-level factors for greater attention to
the SDPHE in NDCs and more progressive climate change mitigation policymaking.