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Environmental Health Literacy in Support of Social Action: An Environmental JusticePerspective
Citation:
White, B., EricS Hall, AND C. Johnson. Environmental Health Literacy in Support of Social Action: An Environmental JusticePerspective. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH. National Environmental Health Association, Denver, CO, 77(1):24-29, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL′s) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD′s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA′s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
Different demographic groups in the U.S. experience unequal exposures to environmental hazards, i.e., 56% of the population in neighborhoods containing commercial waste facilities arc people of color, with the associated poverty rates in those communities being 50% higher than in neighborhoods without commercial waste facilities. Developing programs to educate communities about environmental hazards affecting their health and quality of life is an essential component for a community to understand their true risk. The study described in this article examined the risk of environmental hazards as perceived by public housing residents and assessed the residents' preference for educational programs on environmental hazards. Residents perceived their risk factors in a broad context and they included environmental health risks caused by pollutants along with physical safety concerns from crime and law enforcement interactions. The most trusted sources of information on environmental health include community organizations, trusted individuals in the community, and television programs. Recommendations for developing community-specific environmental health education programs include using sources of environmental health information that community members trust.
URLs/Downloads:
HALL FINAL FINAL ORD-004365 WITH ATTACHMENTS.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 589.385 KB, about PDF)Journal of Environmental Health
