Climate change, health, and migration: Profiles of resilience and vulnerability in the Marshall Islands

The East-West Center’s NOAA-funded Climate Change, Health, and Migration Project studies how climate change, health, and migration intersect in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The report opens with a summary of the findings, and recommendations for policymakers. 

This report summarizes a two-part analysis of survey data from 199 households in the RMI about their past migrations and expectations to migrate in the future. Using hierarchical clustering analysis and logistic regression, it identifies groups among those surveyed with significantly different profiles of vulnerability, health outcomes, and migration agency. We find that climate change and its impacts are not experienced evenly across the population, but have differing associated health and migration outcomes. Furthermore, migration within and beyond the RMI may be related to a changing climate but is also a complex composite of many factors.