New APHA book examines racial equity, environmental health
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* Teddi Dineley Johnson

From safe streets to clean water and air, a community’s physical environment influences the health of its residents. But low-income Americans and minorities have long borne an unequal burden of environmental health threats compared to the general population, according to a new APHA book. Living in the shadows cast by incinerators, smelters, garbage dumps, sewage treatment plants, landfills and chemical plants, residents of low-income and minority communities are disproportionately and adversely affected by industrial pollution and unequal enforcement of environmental regulations.

Published by APHA Press with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, “Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable and Livable Communities,” traces the deep roots of environmental racism, which, according to the book’s authors, have been hard to eliminate. And while mounting grassroots mobilization over the past three decades has resulted in new laws and regulations, minority neighborhoods continue to serve as “dumping grounds” for polluting facilities.

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/41/3/4.2/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/41/3/4.2/F1)

“The poorest of the poor within the United States have the worst health and live in the most degraded environments,” said lead author and APHA member Robert D. Bullard, PhD, who authored the book with Glenn S. Johnson, PhD, and Angel O. Torres, MCP. “One of the most important indicators of an individual’s health is one’s street address or neighborhood. Residents who physically live on the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ are subjected to elevated environmental health threats.”

The book illustrates the progress that has been made in moving health equity and environmental justice from the confines of grassroots community groups to city halls, state houses, the halls of Congress and even the White House. Today, all 50 states have some form of environmental justice law or policy designed to address environmental health disparities, Bullard said, noting that four of the nation’s 13 university-based environmental justice centers are located at historically black colleges and universities.

“The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is pleased to support this important book, written by the true father of the environmental justice movement, Robert Bullard, and his colleagues,” said Gail Christopher, DN, vice president of program strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “It is our hope that the movement’s ‘story’ and the reminder of the injustices communities continue to face will help ignite an even more robust effort nationwide to improve environmental conditions and health for all.”

The book documents the current state of the environmental justice movement and its work around health and racial equity over the past 25 years. It identifies the impact of the movement on public health research, health policy, health legislation and health education among grassroots, community-based and national networks and organizations. The book also examines environmental justice and health equity research and chronicles milestones of the movement over the past three decades.

The book is designed to appeal to a broad audience that includes students, the general public, decision-makers and public and private organizations seeking to identify needs and collaborative opportunities around environmental health through a racial equity lens.

To buy “Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable and Livable Communities,” visit [www.aphabookstore.org](http://www.aphabookstore.org). For more information, e-mail apha{at}pbd.com.

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association