3.3 - Enviornmental Justice

Environmental justice absolutely involves the concept of "social determinants."
Many people of color, who are of lower income and social status, face many more health challenges due to their toxic home environments. Those who live in more rural or poorer areas, are living near unsafe or toxin releasing landmarks which have a negative effect on resident health, leading to higher rates of diseases and mortality.Governments should be taking into consideration these health problems, and helping to solve the issue.

We can connect this to the "Black Lives Matter" movement? Environmental Justice is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies”. As mentioned above, people of color are disproportionally affected by this, and policies should be carried out to correct, treat and limit further impact on this population.  

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Comments

  1. Ayla EvinsSeptember 16, 2018 at 4:24 PM

    Hi Jenay -
    The issue of environmental justice is so important! People of color and people who are of lower income status already face so many more challenges and on top of that they face additional health challenges because of where they are forced to live. I'm glad that this issue has been recognized and federal agencies are taking steps to change this - but we can't lose focus on this very important issue!

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