Adora Nsonwu-Farley

Climate Change & Health Equity

Climate change is the defining public health crisis of our time, and I am building a research program that places it at the center. My primary climate focus is on extreme heat — its physiological toll, its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, and its intersections with existing disease burdens. I approach climate health research through a health equity lens, centering the populations who bear the greatest risk with the least resources to adapt. My key areas of focus are:

 

• Extreme Heat & Cardiovascular Disease (CVD): Examining how rising temperatures and heat events exacerbate CVD outcomes, particularly in carceral settings and vulnerable communities.
• Climate & Infectious Disease: Investigating how shifting climate patterns influence the geography and seasonality of infectious disease transmission, including vector-borne and waterborne illnesses.
• Health Equity & Climate Vulnerability: Exploring how race, poverty, and structural inequality amplify climate-related health risks, with a focus on informing equitable adaptation and mitigation policy.
• Climate Health Policy: Translating climate-health evidence into policy recommendations that impact local, national, and global levels.

 

 

Carceral Health Research

I have significant applied experience in carceral health research through my work at the CDC's Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, & Environmental Diseases, where I led evaluation and research efforts focused on food safety and disease prevention within correctional facilities. Incarcerated populations represent one of the most health-disadvantaged groups in the United States, experiencing elevated rates of chronic disease, infectious disease, and poor environmental conditions — all of which intersect directly with my climate change focus.

 

• Food Safety in Correctional Settings: Developed monitoring and evaluation frameworks and led quantitative analysis of food safety knowledge, attitudes, and practices among correctional workers.
• Infectious Disease in Carceral Settings: Interested in expanding research to examine how climate-exacerbated environmental conditions — including extreme heat — affect disease transmission and health outcomes in incarcerated populations.
• Policy & Structural Reform: Exploring the policy landscape around carceral health standards, including paid sick leave for food workers and occupational health protections in institutional settings.

 

 

Global Health, Policy & Human Rights

My global health foundation — anchored by my MPH in Global Health from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health — shapes my commitment to health as a human right. I have worked on global health projects across Sub-Saharan Africa (South Africa, Kenya), the country of Georgia, and Malaysia, including research on mHealth for adolescent sexual and reproductive health, viral hepatitis elimination programs, and refugee resettlement challenges.

 

• Global Health Policy: Evaluating how international and domestic health policies can better align with global health equity goals, including WHO frameworks and rights-based approaches to care.
• Health & Human Rights: Examining structural barriers to health access — including for adolescent girls and women, stateless peoples, and asylum seekers — as human rights imperatives.
• mHealth & Digital Health Equity: Assessing the role of mobile health technologies in expanding access to sexual and reproductive health services for marginalized populations in low-resource settings.
• Climate Change as a Global Health Crisis: Situating climate change within global health frameworks, particularly examining how low- and middle-income countries and vulnerable global populations disproportionately face climate-driven health harms.

 

 

Human Trafficking Research

I have an established and growing body of work in human trafficking research, conducted in collaboration with interdisciplinary teams. My contributions include systems-level mapping of trafficking dynamics and a distinctive focus on athlete trafficking — an underexamined area of labor exploitation.

 

• Athlete Trafficking: Presented at the International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference (2023, 2024) on labor exploitation in sports contexts, including the unique vulnerabilities of athletes to trafficking and coercion.
• Causal Loop & Systems Diagrams: Developed copyrighted causal loop and flow diagrams exploring human trafficking systems, published in Human Trafficking: Applying Research, Theory, and Case Studies for Social Workers and the Helping Professions (2nd ed., Cognella, 2025).
• Labor Trafficking & Exploitation: Co-authored "Human Trafficking: Exploiting Labor" (in press) in the Encyclopedia of Social Work Online (Oxford University Press), addressing labor trafficking frameworks and intervention implications.

 

 

Health Measurement, Evaluation & Systems Thinking

Running through all my research is a commitment to rigorous, mixed-methods evaluation and systems-level analysis. I am particularly interested in how we measure health — who gets counted, what gets measured, and how measurement shapes policy and practice. My systems thinking work applies causal loop diagrams, flow diagrams, and participatory mapping methodologies to surface the structural drivers of health inequity.

 

• Mixed-Methods Program Evaluation: Experienced in designing and implementing monitoring & evaluation plans for public health programs, including qualitative codebook development, in-depth interviews, and quantitative survey analysis.
• Systems Mapping: Applying causal loop diagramming and systems mapping to visualize complex, multi-level public health problems — including human trafficking and structural racism — and to identify high-leverage intervention points. Co-investigator on a project that explored missing and murdered Indigenous women and people (MMIWP) as a systemic domestic and global health crisis. This work was a Top Four Finalist and People's Choice Award winner at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School and UNC Chapel Hill Map the System Global Systems Competition.
• Health Metrics & Indicators: Interested in developing and refining health indicators that better capture the experiences of marginalized populations, particularly in the context of climate-related health outcomes.
• Implementation Science: Trained in the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), with applied experience evaluating public health frameworks and emergency response systems.

 

 

Health Policy

Policy is both a subject of my research and a vehicle for its impact. I am interested in how health policies are designed, implemented, and experienced — particularly by those most affected by structural health inequities. My policy experience spans occupational health, food safety regulation, viral hepatitis elimination, and sexual and reproductive health rights.

 

• Occupational Health Policy: Led social-behavioral research on state paid sick leave laws for food workers, presented at the NEARS User Meeting and the AFDO 2030 Healthy People Meeting (2024).
• Climate & Environmental Health Policy: Interested in the development and evaluation of climate adaptation policies that center environmental justice and health equity.
• Global Health Policy: Experience analyzing international health policy alignment, including aligning national viral hepatitis strategies with WHO global indicators for Georgia's hepatitis C elimination program.
• Food Safety & Regulatory Policy: Conducted impact evaluations of new FSIS regulatory frameworks to assess effects on Salmonella prevention and food safety outcomes.