Integrating Environmental Justice into Public Health: Approaches for Understanding Cumulative Impacts

Communities located near multiple sources of pollution, including current and former industrial sites, major roadways, and agricultural operations, are often predominantly low-income, with a large percentage of minorities and non-English speakers. These communities face additional challenges that can affect the health of their residents, including limited access to health care, a shortage of grocery stores, poor housing quality, and a lack of parks and open spaces. Research is now showing that environmental exposures can interact with social stressors, thereby worsening health outcomes. Age, nutrition, genetic characteristics, and preexisting health conditions also increase the risk of adverse health effects from exposure to pollutants. There are existing approaches for characterizing cumulative impacts, which vary in their analytical method and level of community engagement. Biomonitoring, health risk assessment, ecological risk assessment, health impact assessment, burden of disease, and cumulative impacts mapping have all been used to evaluate aspects of this issue. Although such approaches have merit, they each also have significant constraints. New developments in exposure monitoring, mapping, toxicology, and genomics, especially when informed by community participation, have the potential to advance the science on cumulative impacts and to improve prioritization, resource allocation, and risk reduction

Diesel exhaust and asthma: hypotheses and molecular mechanisms of action.

Several components of air pollution have been linked to asthma. In addition to the well-studied critera air pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and ozone, diesel exhaust and diesel exhaust particles (DEPs) also appear to play a role in respiratory and allergic diseases. Diesel exhaust is composed of vapors, gases, and fine particles emitted by diesel-fueled compression-ignition engines. DEPs can act as nonspecific airway irritants at relatively high levels. At lower levels, DEPs promote release of specific cytokines, chemokines, immunoglobulins, and oxidants in the upper and lower airway. Release of these mediators of the allergic and inflammatory response initiates a cascade that can culminate in airway inflammation, mucus secretion, serum leakage into the airways, and bronchial smooth muscle contraction. DEPs also may promote expression of the T(subscript)H(/subscript)2 immunologic response phenotype that has been associated with asthma and allergic disease. DEPs appear to have greater immunologic effects in the presence of environmental allergens than they do alone. This immunologic evidence may help explain the epidemiologic studies indicating that children living along major trucking thoroughfares are at increased risk for asthmatic and allergic symptoms and are more likely to have objective evidence of respiratory dysfunction

Seafood Contamination after the BP Gulf Oil Spill and Risks to Vulnerable Populations: A Critique of the FDA Risk Assessment

Background: The BP oil spill of 2010 resulted in contamination of one of the most productive fisheries in the United States by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs, which can accumulate in seafood, are known carcinogens and developmental toxicants. In response to the oil spill, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) developed risk criteria and established thresholds for allowable levels [levels of concern (LOCs)] of PAH contaminants in Gulf Coast seafood

Semi-dwarfism and lodging tolerance in tef (Eragrostis tef) is linked to a mutation in the α-Tubulin 1 gene

The semi-dwarf and lodging-tolerant kegne mutant linked to defects in microtubule orientation has the potential to enhance the productivity of an African orphan crop tef (Eragrostis tef

Doing the Work -- Collectively Pursuing Anti-Racist and Equitable Teaching: One High School English Department’s Journey

Our district has long been heralded as a beacon school, one that delivers exceptional education in an exceptional community. Peeling back the layers, however, revealed a district that lurched towards the traditional, even with the hiring of DEI faculty and the step away from an historical indigenous mascot. In a time where teachers are exhausted and afraid of community backlash, our English department dared to tear off the scabs of old wounds and united to push toward what is best for our changing community and students. Hard conversations, difficult topics, and months of legwork at last successfully provided the impetus to move our department forward. As we dug into our curriculum and dug out of our individual comfort zones and passion projects, we realized that we had a long way to go to truly provide an education for our students that was representative of the students in the room and inclusive of all. Haltingly, we began to revamp our curriculum and unite in our goals. Along the way, we found ways to build bridges between old and new staff members, and ultimately joined together to write this article to submit for publication. This article unpacks our individual and collective journeys toward cohesion and inclusion, outlines our inquiry work to “stretch the field of literacy, language arts, and English” in our district, discusses the “tensions [that we] see in literacy education today,” and details our work to “best meet the needs of [our] students” (Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 2021). The work has been and continues to be difficult, but it is critically important—and worth it