Environmental Justice最新文献

Purpose: The active engagement of those impacted by environmental decisions is foundational to environmental justice (EJ) movements. EJ advocates and state level policy makers are crafting legislation using cumulative impact (CI) frameworks. We examine language in state-level CI legislation related to public participation, with a particular focus on the degree of public influence in environmental decision-making.

Methods: We used legislative tracking sites to identify state level CI legislation introduced or passed, 2017 -2024. We extracted language describing mechanisms for public participation and agency accountability, and coded each document using classifications based on the International Organization for Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum of Public Participation.

Results: We identified 44 legislative documents using CI frameworks introduced or passed, 2017-2024. Four (9%) included no public participation language and two (5%) were coded at IAP2's lowest level of public participation, "inform" (e.g. providing information). Twenty-four (54%) were coded in IAP2's "consult" category (e.g. inviting comments), with six (14%) coded as "involve" (e.g., assuring public concerns and aspirations are understood and addressed). Seven (16%) were coded as "collaborate" (e.g., active engagement of the public as partners in decision-making) and one (2%) was coded in the "empower" category (e.g. community members making the decisions).

Conclusions: Effective and just environmental governance requires collaborative and empowered decision making. Language in most state policies using CI frameworks falls short of collaborative or empowered public participation. Those with collaborative and empowered approaches to public participation offer important models for expanding public influence in environmental decision-making.

Problem statement: Geographic-specific strategies for reducing air pollutants are of increasing interest for informing policies that reduce disparate air pollution exposure and health impacts. State legislation identifying such geographic areas use varying definitions, often focused on pollutant levels and/or population characteristics, with implications that are not well understood.

Research question: How do commonly used legislative definitions of overburdened communities (OBCs) differ in capturing areas that experience excess air pollutants? What are implications for eliminating excess pollutant exposure and health inequities?

Methods: We extracted OBC definitions from state legislation using cumulative impact frameworks introduced or passed before May 2024. Using Michigan as a case study, we calculated correlations, sensitivity, and specificity of common OBC indicators and thresholds with PM_2.5 concentration at the census block group (CBG) level. We used generalized linear mixed models to forecast change over time (2019-2039) in PM_2.5 disparities using selected OBC definitions and various scenarios.

Results: OBC definitions that included race/ethnicity had significantly larger disparities in PM_2.5 concentration, compared with definitions that foregrounded income. Forecasting models indicate increasing inequalities over time for all OBC definitions using current and moderately accelerated intervention scenarios: Inequalities decline or disappear only under modeling scenarios which double or quadruple current rates of change.

Conclusion: Differences in PM_2.5 concentrations were largest when OBC definitions included race/ethnicity, and if current trends continue, are projected to increase over time, regardless of OBC definition. Exposure inequalities for OBCs defined using race and ethnicity are only eliminated under scenarios that double or quadruple current rates of reduction.

Background: Community organizers in Southern Delaware County, PA, expressed a desire to collect comprehensive data on environmental, health, and social conditions in their neighborhoods to inform advocacy efforts to prompt public health action.

Methods: Using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, our team of academic and community coinvestigators developed an online community health survey to characterize residents' health concerns and the strengths, burdens, and needs of fenceline communities in Southern Delaware County. We included questions on chemical exposures, sources of pollution, financial stressors, health care, medical conditions, and priorities for policymakers.

Results: Participants reported experiencing adverse effects of poor air quality, odors, and noise in their communities. Eighty-six percent of participants reported experiencing at least two nonchemical stressors, such as poor housing conditions, food insecurity, and experiences of racism and discrimination. We found high proportions of reported asthma diagnoses and symptoms in participants and the children living in their households. Symptoms of asthma, depression, and anxiety were more common than clinician diagnoses of these conditions. Participants also commonly reported decreased quality of life or functioning associated with physical and mental health issues.

Discussion: Our findings highlight the importance of characterizing chemical and nonchemical stressors among residents in fenceline communities and expanding consideration of health to include acute symptoms, well-being, and quality of life. Our study was strengthened by our CBPR approach.

Conclusion: Our work demonstrates the value of assessing cumulative impacts and employing CBPR approaches in fenceline communities.

Background: The COVID-19 crisis unfolded foregrounded by unprecedented levels of where historical underinvestment in basic infrastructure have left the working poor, uninsured, and underinsured vulnerable. Social inequalities related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status leads to certain groups being disproportionately exposed to multiple environmental hazards and social stressors.

Methods: Building on the existing Health and Air Pollution Study cohort (established in 2017) based in the multiethnic urban neighborhoods in South LA, we assessed acute health symptoms, stress measures, and socioeconomic metrics between May and October 2020. We assessed the pandemic-associated traumatic stress score based on a 10-item questionnaire.

Results: Among the 242 participants that completed a phone-based survey, we identified preexisting high-risk comorbidities: asthma or COPD (19%), diabetes (24%), hypertension (38%), and obesity (48.4%). Nearly four out of five respondents employed before the pandemic reported job loss or reduction of hours. Isolation, family, and economic concerns were among the top stressors reported by participants. Stress related to access to medical care was reported by one-quarter of participants. Stressors were reported more frequency among uninsured participants. Concern over isolation and inability to buy essential items were most associated with higher pandemic-associated traumatic stress score.

Discussion and conclusions: Understanding the experiences, stressors, and resources in urban environmental justice neighborhoods are key to design policies and programs aimed at improving the socioeconomic impacts of the current-and in future-public health crises.

Background: The need to study and understand cumulative impacts, the combined influence of chemical and non-chemical stressors on health and quality of life, is becoming increasingly recognized. The goal of this study is to understand how residents in fenceline communities experience the cumulative impacts of pollution and other non-chemical stressors on their physical and mental health and to develop meaningful policy solutions to mitigate the harms caused by these cumulative burdens.

Methods: We used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, partnering with residents in southern Delaware County, PA, experiencing environmental injustice, to design and conduct focus groups. Our focus groups aimed to better understand how residents characterize stressors related to their environmental, physical, and mental health. We used a deductive/inductive hybrid data analysis method to distill the most significant findings from the focus groups.

Results: We conducted focus groups with residents (n = 22) of four Southeastern Pennsylvania fenceline municipalities. Participants discussed chemical (e.g., air pollution and odors) and non-chemical stressors (e.g., lack of access to green spaces) influencing their physical and mental health. Participants also described how these stressors are interconnected and worsen their health and quality of life. Participants identified solutions (e.g., policy change and community organizing) to mitigate the most pressing stressors.

Discussion: This study is the first in the area to work alongside community investigators to understand how residents in fenceline communities experience cumulative impacts. Our findings were presented to key community stakeholders to inform future advocacy work to mitigate the cumulative burdens faced by these fenceline communities.

Background: Structural racism measures based on publicly available data alone do not capture the breadth of lived experiences of racism or their impacts. Few studies incorporate measures of lived experience in analyses of structural racism at the neighborhood level. We investigated associations between self-reported experiences of racism, measures of racialized economic segregation at the census tract level (a proxy for structural racism), and birth outcomes among pregnant African American people.

Study design: Participants were enrolled in the Atlanta African American Maternal-Child Cohort (N=297). Experiences of racial and gender discrimination were measured during pregnancy using self-reported, validated questionnaires. The Index of Concentration at the Extremes (ICE) was used to quantify economic segregation (ICE_income) and racialized economic segregation (ICE_race-income) for the census tract of residence during pregnancy. Analysis of continuous ICE measures and self-reported experiences of discrimination were conducted using Kruska-Wallis rank-sum testing. Linear regression was used to estimate associations between self-reported experiences of discrimination and ICE scores with gestational age (in weeks) at delivery and birthweight for gestational age z-scores.

Results: Participants living in areas of higher racialized economic privilege reported more frequent experiences of discrimination (χ² ICE_income = 10.81; χ² ICE_race+income = 6.30; p<0.05). An increase in frequency of self-reported experiences of discrimination was associated with reduced gestational age at delivery (β= -0.08, 95% confidence interval [CI] = -0.13, -0.03) but not with birthweight for gestational age in adjusted models. ICE scores were not associated with either birth outcome.

Conclusions: In this Atlanta birth cohort, self-reported experiences of racial discrimination, but not measures of racialized economic polarization, were associated with reduced gestational age among African American pregnant people.

Background: Children living in environmental justice (EJ) neighborhoods may be vulnerable to metal exposure from industrial facilities that are located near their homes.

Methods: Working with community partners, we held 20 recruitment events and invited children aged 5-12 and their parents living in EJ communities in Houston to participate in an environmental health study. Parents completed a questionnaire about their child's diet and behaviors and urine samples were collected from children to evaluate their metal exposure.

Results: During a 4-month period, we recruited 52 out of 67 (78%) eligible parent/child dyads with 96% of children providing urine samples and 90% of questionnaires complete except for data on children's height and weight. While urinary metal concentrations in our study population were generally similar compared with children aged 6-11 years in the 2015-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we observed higher levels among children who frequently ate Mexican candy, rice, or red meat, spent more time outdoors, played with cosmetics, had metal piercings, or lived in a home with smokers or where pesticides were used.

Discussion: Our study was successful in recruiting children in EJ communities for the purpose of assessing urinary metal exposure and obtaining questionnaire data from parents to examine the potential sources of exposure. Except for chromium and cobalt, 14 metals were detected in more than half of children's urine samples. We identified potential key determinants of exposure in this population that should be further examined.

Conclusion: Findings point to the need for adequately powered studies among potentially vulnerable children living in EJ communities to profile metal exposures and identify important sources of these exposures.

Background: Community research partners in Boston Chinatown implemented a planning charrette as a part of a community-based participatory study focused on near highway research and public health action to mitigate traffic-related air pollution (TRAP). Charrettes are intensive workshops for solution-oriented design and planning used to bring together diverse stakeholders to address complex environmental health concerns.

Methods: The planning charrette included three phases: (1) community meetings and resident interviews, (2) a planning charrette to address community health concerns and air pollution within larger community wellness goals, and (3) development of a Master Planning document with policy, project, and practice recommendations to guide future community advocacy.

Outcomes: Intergenerational residents, community leaders, planners, researchers, and volunteers (N = 90) joined a day-long planning charrette to inform the Chinatown Master Plan. Workshops were informed by resident interviews focused on finding solutions to three resident identified priorities: Healthy Housing, Healthy Mobility, and Healthy Public Realm. Air pollution mitigation strategies were embedded in discussions around each priority area.

Discussion: The charrette provided an opportunity for community stakeholders to voice concerns about TRAP as part of a new framework focused on health and wellness. Concerns about pedestrian safety, housing access, and expansion of green and recreational spaces were highlighted by participants as important areas for further development.

Conclusions: Boston Chinatown residents reaffirmed their investment in the community by highlighting concerns about TRAP within the context of other health-related concerns. Charrettes offer a vehicle to advance environmental justice in communities through collective problem-solving and decision making.