Search Results (42)

Environmental justice research in the United States (US) documents greater air pollution exposures for Hispanic/Latino vs. non-Hispanic White groups. EJ research has not focused on the intersection of race/ethnicity and older age nor short-term fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) exposures. We address these knowledge gaps by studying US metropolitan area census tracts within 100 km of the US–Mexico border, a region with serious air quality issues. We use US Census American Community Survey data to construct sociodemographic variables and Environmental Protection Agency Downscaler data to construct long-term and short-term measures of PM_2.5 exposure. Using multivariable generalized estimating equations, we test for differences in PM_2.5 exposures between census tracts with higher vs. lower proportions of older Hispanic/Latino residents and older non-Hispanic White residents. The results indicate that as the proportion of the Hispanic/Latino population ≥ 65 years of age increases, long-term and short-term PM_2.5 exposures significantly increase. In contrast, as the proportion of the non-Hispanic White population ≥ 65 years of age increases, changes in long-term and short-term PM_2.5 exposures are statistically non-significant. These findings illuminate how race/ethnicity and older age intersect in shaping PM_2.5 exposure disparities and may inform efforts to mitigate air pollution exposures for overburdened people along the US–Mexico border. Full article

The environmental justice (EJ) movement has evolved over five decades, encapsulating diverse theories, principles, frameworks, and practices. Despite considerable advancements in this field, the nuances of EJ in the Anthropocene era, along with its monitoring and evaluation, remain ambiguous. This paper endeavors to bridge this gap by amalgamating more than 200 review and empirical articles and theoretical literature to delve into a comprehensive exploration of the EJ discourse to date, utilizing the Planetary Justice Research Framework (PJRF). First, we build on the existing knowledge by using three dimensions of EJ from the PJRF, acknowledging historical legacies, and explaining them with practical examples. Second, we create a comprehensive framework to evaluate (in)justice in real-world applications, highlighting the contextual relationships (intra-, inter-, and transdisciplinary) and the role of spatial, temporal, and contextual factors. Finally, we explore the complex connections between living beings and non-living components, showing how (un)just actions impact the balance within and between planetary systems. Consequently, the newly devised monitoring framework highlights potential instances where questions of (in)justice may arise in practical settings, thereby guiding the formulation of measuring indicators and procedural methodologies. Full article

Brownfields, abandoned or underutilized lands having the potential for contamination due to industrial activities, pose health risks to nearby residents and raise environmental justice (EJ) concerns. This study examines the relationship between brownfield distribution and socioeconomic factors in New Jersey, a state with over 700 brownfield sites, using correlation, spatial autoregression, and instrumental variable regression methods. Results show that brownfields are associated with higher combined EJ stressors, indicating compounding environmental pollution and health risks in affected areas. Brownfields are disproportionately correlated with lower household income, higher rates of uninsured individuals, lower educational attainment, and a greater percentage of people of color. When accounting for spatial autocorrelation, relationships between income, education, and brownfield distributions are reduced, reflecting New Jersey’s historical, environmental, and social contexts. Overall, the presence of people of color maintains the strongest association with brownfield distribution. This study highlights ongoing EJ challenges faced by disadvantaged groups and emphasizes the need for targeted mitigation measures to enhance sustainability and equity. New Jersey serves as a critical case study given its ethnic diversity, growing urban population, and status as the state with the highest population density in the United States, illustrating broader trends of disproportionate exposure to environmental pollution among marginalized communities. Full article

Although urban greenspace enhances ecological functioning and human well-being through ecosystem services (ES), it is oftentimes inequitably distributed. Environmental justice (EJ) encompasses aspects of distributive, procedural, and interactive justice related to accessibility and allocation of environmental benefits. Vacant land in shrinking cities has the potential to address greenspace inequalities and provide ES. This study investigated the perceptions of residents regarding urban ES and EJ in their communities in St. Louis (MO, USA)—a shrinking city that was undergoing green development, through semi-structured interviews. Altogether, 27 residents were selected from socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods characterized by high levels of vacancy due to legacies of redlining and systemic racism. Interview analysis revealed four themes: green benefits (including recreation opportunities), green costs (e.g., concerns for increased crime and nuisance animals), injustice issues (e.g., access to community greenspaces), and changes in the community (e.g., higher property taxes). Results revealed that residents perceived ES as closely connected with EJ when it comes to urban greening projects in their city. This study helps inform the process of urban greening projects, particularly in shrinking cities at risk of inequities. Full article

Over the last two decades, substantial studies have been conducted to assess the feasibility of a multi-pollutant strategy for managing air quality in the United States. Given the inherent complexity of multi-pollutant air quality challenges, including fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), ozone (O₃), and air toxics, this paper undertook a multi-pollutant analysis at both national and local levels. Our analysis incorporated O₃ and PM_2.5 concentrations, air toxics that increase the risk of cancer, environmental justice (EJ) data, emissions data, and monitoring data. Initially, we identified counties across the continental U.S. with heightened multi-pollutant exposures and EJ concerns. Subsequently, a case study within the Detroit metropolitan area was conducted, revealing a clear overlap between multi-pollutant and EJ issues, underscoring the disproportionate burden on disadvantaged communities. The analysis of detailed emissions data unveiled potential co-control benefits in this region. Lastly, employing a proximity analysis method, we assessed environmental issues surrounding points of interest such as monitoring sites and emissions sectors, in the Detroit metropolitan area. The results demonstrated that monitoring sites with the highest monitoring value, alongside top-ranked emissions sectors such as electric utilities, coke ovens, and iron and steel production, were likely to exhibit elevated air pollutant concentrations/risks and associated EJ concerns in their vicinity. Full article

The environmental crisis makes it necessary to reconsider the practices of environmental education (EE) and guide them towards a transformative perspective to promote critical reflection and the ability to make decisions in the face of complex problems, including a perspective of justice. Using the PRISMA systematic review protocol, this article analysed 49 classroom intervention published on international journals to identify the limitations when working on EE in early childhood education, primary education, and pre-service teacher training classrooms from an environmental justice (EJ) perspective. Considering the variables “contents”, “depth of the interventions”, “actions required of students”, and “resources”, the results show a predominance of interventions that promote content knowledge from an ecological perspective and demand actions far removed from reflection and participation, using self-made materials. By not encouraging students to reflect on environmental issues in a holistic way to change their behaviour, it was confirmed that they move away from systems thinking, critical literacy, and action competence. Therefore, there is a lack of integration of the EJ perspective in classroom practices. To achieve educational success in terms of social change for environmental protection, it is necessary to promote research work focused on the didactics of EE including a social justice perspective. Full article

In this study, we tested the use of lichen biomonitoring techniques for the assessment of air quality disparities at the urban scale. We based our evaluation on the results of a previous lichen biomonitoring study carried out in Milan (Northern Italy), which estimates the contamination by potentially toxic elements (PTEs) and its distribution over the area, also providing an evaluation of the main emission sources. Therefore, we used the traditional methodologies for environmental justice assessment: the proximity-based and the distribution-based approaches. The workflow we propose is a data-driven selection of emission sources that contributes to overcoming the dichotomy between the two approaches and is now widely debated in the scientific community. A socio-economic deprivation index was elaborated for each census unit of Milan city and then related to the proximity of the emission sources previously selected. The results suggested that in the surrounding of industries and railways, the deprivation is higher, while the proximity of main roads is inhabited by wealthier populations. The distribution-based approach was run through a quantile regression analysis, and the outcome indicated that among the wealthier groups, an increase in contamination is followed by an increase in socio-economic deprivation, whilst among the deprived groups, people with greater economic opportunities tend, however, to live in worse air quality conditions due to the proximity of communication routes. This study poses the potential to review the classical methods of EJ assessment, providing a reliable workflow applicable in urban areas—the most vulnerable in terms of air quality disparities in the present and in the future. Full article

Impoverished and under-served communities are often exposed to the worst environmental and climate hazards. Identifying these communities and building their resilience capacity to withstand such hazards is a vital justice aspect of environmental management. Building community resilience requires five activities: (1) examination of existing information, (2) community engagement and assessment of local knowledge, (3) development of reasonable strategies to build resilience, (4) implementation and these strategies, and (5) monitoring and transability of the process. This manuscript examines the first component of this process. The attributes of multiple parishes in Louisiana are examined using available data and existing models of human well-being, community resilience, and environmental/climate/socioeconomic justice. These existing models and tools were used to determine parish-level resilience to natural hazards including flooding, hurricanes, and other potential natural climatic hazards in central Louisiana (U.S.). Through consultation with state officials and local community groups, candidate environmental justice (EJ) and social justice (SJ) communities were selected to develop resilience capacity enhancement plans to address potential adverse parish and community outcomes of natural hazard events. Of the available parishes, St. Helena Parish was selected as an entity that would significantly benefit from resilience capacity building. The remaining two activities, community engagement and strategy development, will be examined in sister manuscripts. Continuing studies, to be described elsewhere, will describe community engagement and the determination of strategies, implementation plans, and the monitoring of the success of these strategic implementations. Full article

The U.S. EPA’s Environmental Justice (EJ) Collaborative Problem-Solving (CPS) Model represents a systematic, community-based approach for bringing together various stakeholders to develop solutions to address local EJ and public health concerns. This mixed methods evaluation study, using a two-phase explanatory sequential design that allows for qualitative data to build upon initial quantitative results, reports findings from an evaluation of the U.S. EPA’s EJ Academy (EJA) program that was comprised of a curriculum grounded in the CPS Model and designed to build capacity in addressing EJ concerns. As a part of participation, each EJA Fellow directly applied learned skills to implement an EJ community change project. All Fellows across four cohorts of the EJA (2016–2019; n = 67) were invited to participate in this evaluation and were asked to complete a questionnaire (n = 35) comprised of measures to assess the degree to which CPS Model elements were utilized in the design and implementation of their community projects. Interviews were conducted (n = 25) to further explore the utility of the CPS Model in building capacity to address local environmental challenges. In an assessment of the full CPS Model using all seven elements in a composite measure, more than half of the EJA Fellows (n = 19, 55.9%) had moderate levels of implementation of CPS elements and 17% (n = 6) had high levels of implementation into their projects. Evaluation findings provide insight into the impact and limitations of the EJA with implications for future program planning and distribution of the Academy curriculum to assist communities in addressing EJ concerns and making environmental change. Full article

Community-Engaged Research (CER) often involves partnerships between academic or professional researchers and community organizers. Critical CER and organizing each aim to mobilize people and resources to produce actionable knowledge in order to build grassroots leadership and power that promote equity and justice for marginalized communities. This article argues that critical CER collaborations can benefit by carefully matching the choice of research methods with community partners’ organizing strategies to ensure that research aligns with and supports organizing goals. We aim to add to the CER literature a more specific rationale for why professional researchers should share control over the choice of research methods with community organizers, and more detailed guidance for how CER teams can select methods that best advance organizers’ goals. After summarizing the many ways in which collaborative research can support community organizing efforts, we argue that different CER methods align best with widely-used organizing approaches (including Alinskyite, Freirean, feminist, community building and resilience-based, and transformative approaches). We illustrate the discussion with examples of research conducted by and with organizations rooted in the environmental justice (EJ) movement, which prioritizes community organizing as a strategy and draws from multiple organizing traditions, including a case study of research techniques used by the Environmental Health Coalition, one of the oldest EJ groups in the U.S. Full article

Increasing acknowledgement of climate change (CC) has encouraged various responses, such as education standard mandates. In 2021, New Jersey (NJ) became the first U.S. state to require K–12 CC education across subjects, effective fall 2022. This necessitated introductory science courses on CC to support high school (HS) curricula. Thus, NJ Safe Schools Program (NJSS) created a new course titled, “Introduction to HS Students to CC, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice (EJ).” Given that the COVID-19 pandemic continues (2020–2023 school years) and vaccination coverage varies, this course was developed and approved in an asynchronous online format. Its five modules cover environmental science, CC, natural disasters and extreme weather events, sustainability, including energy conservation and efficiency definitions, and EJ. A 20-question survey included at the end, modified/adapted from a larger nationwide U.S. Student Conservation Association (SCA) survey 2019–2020, examined the perspectives of HS students concerning CC. Selected volunteer NJ HS enlisted students (n = 82/128 finished) to pilot this course February–April 2022. Results such as average scores ≥90% suggested success regarding initial knowledge and awareness gained; for individual modules, two knowledge checks >80% and three knowledge checks >90%. The SCA survey results, overall and by region in NJ, highlighted how most students felt about CC and extreme weather events, plus issues such as EJ. This NJSS introductory course opened in July 2022 for NJ public county secondary school districts and comprehensive HS with approved career-technical education programs, and potentially elsewhere. Full article

Increased use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and improper disposal after use pose a public health and an environmental justice (EJ) concern if use prevalence is disproportionately high among minorities and people of low socioeconomic status (SES) (broadly termed “EJ populations” for the purposes of this review). This review synthesizes literature on demographic patterns of use prevalence, susceptibility, advertisement exposure, and access to ENDS, and extrapolates environmental tobacco exposure (ETE) from ENDS among EJ populations. Seven electronic databases were searched using ENDS-related terms. We included studies published between 2017 and May 2020 that described ENDS use prevalence, susceptibility to ENDS use, advertisement exposure, and access to ENDS by race, ethnicity, or SES. Data synthesis was based on the assumptions that ETE increases with high use prevalence, susceptibility may influence future use, and advertisement exposure and access may impact demographic differences in use. We identified 32 studies describing use prevalence, susceptibility, advertisement exposure, or access to vape shops and other tobacco retail outlets by race/ethnicity or SES. We found higher prevalence of ENDS use among non-Hispanic Whites and inconclusive use patterns by SES. Patterns of susceptibility to use, advertisement exposure, and access were also mixed, with slightly higher outcomes observed among low SES youth. However, the evidence base on advertisement exposure was limited, with limited generalizability. Our findings indicate low prevalence of ENDS use among EJ populations. While this suggests low potential ETE among these groups, mixed outcomes on susceptibility, advertisement exposure, and access to ENDS among low SES groups may affect future ENDS use and ETE. Educational campaigns that discourage ENDS uptake should target EJ youth. Initiatives aimed at managing vape shop presence in EJ communities and monitoring targeted advertisement are also needed. Full article

In response to increasing threats from sea-level rise and storm surge, the City of Charleston, South Carolina, and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) propose constructing a seawall around the Charleston peninsula. The proposed seawall will terminate close to lower wealth, predominantly minority communities. These communities are identified as environmental justice (EJ) communities due to their history of inequitable burdens of industrial and urban pollution and proximity to highways and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated Superfund sites. The present study documents community concerns and opinions related to the proposed seawall, existing flooding problems, and other issues. The project was guided by knowledge co-production and participant-observation approaches and included interviews with community members, collection of locality-specific data, GIS mapping to visualize key issues, development of an ArcGIS Story Map, and participation in public meetings. Community concerns are reported in the voices of community members and fell into eight major themes: community connections, drainage, impacts of road infrastructure, displacement, increasing vulnerability, sense of exclusion and isolation, mistrust of government, and civic engagement. Community members were significantly engaged in the study and are the owners of the results. As one of the first US East Coast cities pursuing major structural adaptation for flooding, Charleston is likely to become a model for other cities considering waterfront protection measures. We demonstrate the importance of meaningful engagement to ensure that climate adaptation will benefit all, including marginalized communities, and have as few unintended negative consequences as possible. Bringing more people to the table and creating vibrant, long-term partnerships between academic institutions and community-based organizations that include robust links to governmental organizations should be among the first steps in building inclusive, equitable, and climate resilient cities. Full article

Assessment of environmental justice (EJ, a concept related to the distributional fairness of environmental risks) is a crucial component in environmental risk management. However, the risks associated with air pollutants and toxins have rarely been evaluated jointly. Therefore, using an approach integrating modeling, data fusion, and health benefits analysis, we performed an EJ assessment on the mortalities caused by fine particle (PM_2.5) and ozone (O₃) concentrations and mercury (Hg) deposition over the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. The concentration index (CI) was used to measure EJ in low-income distributions and age structures, and a larger value implied a greater EJ issue. The results revealed that the CIs of PM_2.5, O₃, and Hg were 0.35, 0.32, and 0.16, respectively, based on the percentage of the low-income population, and 0.39, 0.36, and 0.23, respectively, based on the elderly and children, indicating that environmental injustice was more prominent for PM_2.5 and more reflected in the elderly and children. The center (e.g., Guangzhou) and some marginal areas (e.g., northeast of Jiangmen) in the PRD were overburdened areas with PM_2.5, O₃, and Hg pollution due to their intensive source emissions. Moreover, cumulative environmental risk (CER) corrected by population vulnerability exhibited significant differences among the cities; for example, cumulative environmental risk scores (CERSs) in Jiangmen, Huizhou, and Zhaoqing were 14.18 to 32.98 times higher than that in Shenzhen. Hence, the implementation of multipollutant control policies for local PM_2.5, O₃, and Hg in overburdened areas is recommended to further promote EJ in the PRD. Full article

Toxic metal exposure via private drinking wells is an environmental health challenge in North Carolina (NC). Policies tainted by environmental racism shape who has access to public water supplies, with Black People, Indigenous People, and People of Color (BIPOC) often excluded from municipal services. Thus, toxic metal exposure via private wells is an environmental justice (EJ) issue, and it is under-studied in NC. In this study, we developed four Toxic Metal Environmental Justice Indices (TM-EJIs) for inorganic arsenic (iAs), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and manganese (Mn) to quantitatively identify areas of environmental injustice in NC. TM-EJIs were calculated at the census tract level (n = 2038) as the product of the following: (1) number of well water tests with concentrations exceeding national standards, (2) percentage of the low-income and minority population, and (3) population density. Mn had the greatest proportion (25.17%) of positive TM-EJIs, which are indicative of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups exposed to toxic metals. Positive TM-EJIs, particularly for Pb and Mn, were primarily located in eastern NC. These results highlight several new counties of concern and can be used by public health professionals and state environmental agencies to prioritize remediation efforts and efforts to reduce environmental injustices. Full article