Towards a Working Definition of Coastal "Community"

Abstract

The term coastal community is widely used in research, policy, and media discourse, yet remains conceptually ill-defined, inconsistently applied, and multivalent. The notion of coastalness often supports definitive-and sometimes contradictory-claims about community health, and socioeconomic conditions, particularly when contrasted with 'inland' areas. We argue that establishing a clear, consistent, and widely understood definition of coastal and inland communities is a critical precursor to robust, comparable research. Such clarity ensures that comparisons are methodologically sound and that resulting insights can meaningfully inform policy and practice. In this position piece, we discuss this issue in the context of the existing body of research and the problems involved in precisely defining coastal "community". We then propose a working definition of "coastalness" with respect to towns that lends itself toward meaningful comparative analysis. Finally, we discuss the limitations on generalisation of this approach to other settlements and outline future directions for research and policy engagement.

Keywords: Public Health, Coastal Health, Coastal Inequality, Community, Place and Health