xvEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Plan EJ 2014
Science Tools
Development
Plan EJ 2014 is EPA's roadmap lor
integrating environmental justice into
its programs and policies.
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SCIENCE TOOLS DEVELOPMENT
Implementation Plan
September 2011
Led by
Office of Research and Development
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, D.C. 20460
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PLAN EJ 2014 AT A GLANCE
Plan EJ 2014 is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s
roadmap to integrating environmental justice into its programs and policies.
The year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order
12898 on environmental justice. Plan EJ 2014 seeks to:
Protect the environment and health in overburdened communities.
- Empower communities to take action to improve their health and
environment.
• Establish partnerships with local, state, tribal, and federal
governments and organizations to achieve healthy and sustainable
communities.
As the EPA's overarching environmental justice strategy, Plan EJ 2014 has
three major sections: Cross-Agency Focus Areas, Tools Development
Areas, and Program Initiatives.
The Cross-Agency Focus Areas are:
Incorporating Environmental Justice into Rulemaking.
Considering Environmental Justice in Permitting.
• Advancing Environmental Justice through Compliance and
Enforcement.
• Supporting Community-Based Action Programs.
• Fostering Administration-Wide Action on Environmental Justice.
The Tools Development Areas are:
Science.
Law.
Information.
Resources.
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1.0 INTRODUaiON 2
1.1 Goals 3
1.2 Strategies 4
1.3 Discussion 4
1.4 Organizational Structure 7
2.0 IMPLEMENTATION 8
2.1 Activities 8
2.2 Community Engagement and Stakeholder Partnership Plan 28
3.0 DELIVERABLES 29
4.0 REPORTING 34
APPENDIX 35
Appendix A: References 35
Appendix B: Acronyms 36
Appendix C: Science Recommendations from the March 2010
Symposium 38
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Goals At-A-G lance
To substantially support
and conduct research that
employs participatory
principles and integrates
social and physical
sciences aimed at
understanding and
illuminating solutions to
environmental and health
inequalities among
overburdened populations
and communities in the
United States.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Under Plan EJ 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has
committed to building a strong scientific foundation for supporting
environmental justice and conducting disproportionate impact analysis,
particularly methods to appropriately characterize and assess cumulative
impacts. These efforts will help to ensure that EPA brings the best
science to decision making around environmental justice issues.
This Science Tools Development Implementation Plan discusses
overarching goals, strategies, and activities, including a science and
research agenda for the Agency. The science and research activities
described in this plan build upon discussions and recommendations from
"Strengthening Environmental Justice and Decision-Making: A Symposium
on the Science of Disproportionate Environmental Health Impacts"
(March 17-19, 2010) and the workshop on "Analytical Methods for
Assessing the Environmental Justice Implications of Environmental
Regulations" (June 9-10, 2010). The March 2010 Symposium was the
principal event for the Agency to identify science needs for environmental
justice and stimulate ideas for innovative research to meet those needs.
1.1 Goals
Our goal is that, within five years, EPA will substantially support and
conduct research that employs participatory principles and integrates
social and physical sciences aimed at understanding and illuminating
solutions to environmental and health inequalities among overburdened
populations and communities1 in the United States. This goal supports
our vision that all Agency decisions will make use of the information,
data, and analytic tools produced. Our goal has two specific elements:
1. Improve the scientific basis for environmental regulatory and policy
decisions in order to ensure that everyone enjoys the same degree of
protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access
to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in
which to live, learn, and work.
2. In order to increase the relevance of science to policy making,
transform how EPA formulates, designs, prioritizes, conducts, and
fosters more citizen participatory, inclusive, co-production of
knowledge, and collaborative processes within the scientific research
enterprise.
1 In Plan EJ 2014, EPA uses the term "overburdened" to describe the minority, low-income, tribal, and
indigenous populations or communities in the United States that potentially experience
disproportionate environmental harms and risks as a result of greater vulnerabilityto environmental
hazards. This increased vulnerability may be attributable to an accumulation of both negative and
lack of positive environmental, health, economic, or social conditions within these populations or
communities.
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We have five major strategies to achieve our goals.
1. Apply integrated transdisciplinary and community-based participatory
research approaches with a focus on addressing multi-media,
cumulative impacts and equity in environmental health and
environmental conditions.
2. Create mechanisms to incorporate perspectives from community-
based organizations and community leaders into EPA's research
agendas and engage in collaborative partnerships with them on
science and research to address environmental justice.
3. Leverage partnerships with other federal agencies on issues of
research, policy, and action to address health disparities.
4. Build and strengthen the technical capacity of Agency scientists on
conducting research in partnership with impacted communities and
translating research results to inform change.
5. Build and strengthen technical capacity of community-based
organizations and community environmental justice and health
leaders to address environmental health disparities and
environmental sustainability issues.
Multiple aspects of the physical environment in which we live, learn,
work, and play can put certain groups of people "at higher risk." Also,
individuals and groups may experience disadvantages related to their
gender, lifestage, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, disability,
education, geographic location, or other characteristics historically linked
to discrimination or exclusion. This complex interaction between the
physical environment and other conditions of social disadvantage
contributes to known social disparities in environmental health
outcomes.
Since 1994, as stated in the Executive Order 12898 (EO 12898), it has
been incumbent upon all federal agencies including EPA to identify and
address disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental effects on minority and low-income populations that may
result from their programs, policies, and activities. The concept of
disproportionate environmental health impacts and burdens refers to the
finding that some populations systematically experience higher levels of
risks and impacts than the general population. (Brulle and Pellow 2006)
This perspective recognizes that multiple factors, including social,
psychosocial, economic, physical, chemical, and biological determinants
may contribute to disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental impacts.
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The importance of science in environmental decision making at EPA
emphasizes the need for data and information that is sound and
defensible, reproducible, and informative. For environmental justice
stakeholders, it is even more important that the science underlying EPA's
decisions appropriately accounts for the multiple exposures to chemical
stressors and cumulative impacts from multiple exposures that they
experience in their communities. Further, the social and real world
context in which exposures to environmental contaminants occur also
needs to be explicitly considered and reflected in EPA's scientific research
and analysis as emerging evidence demonstrates that social context may
enhance the toxic effects of both single and multiple environmental
contaminant exposures. Such considerations require new models for
assessing the toxicity of environmental hazards, advanced methods for
analyzing complex interactions between multiple stressors, and enhanced
access to community-level wisdom and resources.
These emerging needs indicate that new ways of conducting scientific
inquiry to inform environmental decision are needed at EPA. Such
expansion and advancement of EPA's scientific agenda, methods, models,
research inquiry approaches, and information resources is necessary for
the Agency to adequately address environmental justice stakeholder's
concerns about environment, sustainability, and health inequalities.
These advancements take on additional importance when viewed in the
context of the Agency's mandate to achieve environmental justice as
required by EO 12898, and its ability to effectively contribute towards
Healthy People 202ffs overarching goals to achieve health equity,
eliminate health disparities, improve the health of all groups, and create
social and physical environments that promote good health for all.2
Conversely, health and environment status can influence, for example,
the social and institutional arrangements, which can lead to both negative
and positive outcomes cumulatively impacting the health of a community.
The cumulative impact has greater and farther-reaching consequences
than any one factor or event alone; this is particularly evident among
vulnerable low-income and underserved populations. In order to
determine the positive and negative health and environmental impacts
during some of the social processes described above, the scientific
research requires both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
The goals, strategies, and activities for this implementation plan build
upon the science recommendations articulated at the March 2010
symposium, Strengthening Environmental Justice Research and Decision-
Making: A Symposium on the Science of Disproportionate Environmental
Health Impacts, and the subsequent "100-Day Challenge" Report
developed by the Agency in response to recommendations generated
Healthy People is a set of goals and objectives with 10-year targets designed to guide national health
promotion and disease prevention efforts to improve the health of all people in the United States.
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from the symposium. A consistent theme throughout the March 2010
symposium was the linkages between science and policy. These
discussions were framed within the context of identifying research and
scientific needs that are necessary to ensure that environmental justice
concerns and social disparities in environmental health are incorporated
in EPA's decisions for the purpose of advancing EPA policy on
environmental justice. Several conceptual frameworks have been
published in the last few years that relate environmental justice and
health disparities to upstream, structural determinants of health (CSDH
2008; Gee and Payne-Sturges 2004; Krieger 2001; Habermann and
Gouveia 2008; Morello-Frosch 2002; Morello-Frosch and Shenassa 2006;
Schulz et al 2002; Wakefield and Baxter 2010).
Symposium participants suggested several actions that EPA and other
federal agencies take in order to reduce data gaps in the area of
environmental justice, overcome limitations in the theories and methods
for conducting research on environmental health disparities and
particularly research supported by the federal government, and
overcome limitations in practice of risk assessment at EPA. The science
recommendations from environmental justice advocates and other
stakeholders are captured in Appendix C.
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i; .
The specific science and research actions described in Section 2.0 were
developed through a cross-Agency workgroup for the Agency's 100-Day
Report follow-up to the March 2010 Symposium. Representation on the
workgroup included the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), the Office of
Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), the Office of Policy
(OP), the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER), the
Office of Water (OW), the Office of Research and Development (ORD),
and Regions 6, 7, 8, and 10. Region 7 serves as ORD's Lead Region.
Going forward, ORD, as lead for the Science Tools Development
Implementation Plan, proposes to establish a more permanent structure
within ORD, which we are planning to name the Environment Health and
Society Workgroup. This workgroup will serve as ORD science experts
and points of contact on environmental justice, environmental disparities,
and disproportionate impacts science issues. ORD's National Center for
Environmental Research (NCER) and the Office of Science Policy (OSP) will
jointly sponsor and co-chair this new workgroup. The co-chairs will also
lead the Plan EJ 2014 Science Tools Development Workgroup and monitor
the Science Implementation Plan for Plan EJ 2014. ORD is considering re-
constituting the intra-Agency group on science for the 100-Day Report to
serve as the Plan EJ 20114 Science Group. ORD will coordinate with all
the Plan EJ 2014 implementation workgroups to ascertain how current
activities can be better tailored or leveraged to address Plan EJ 2014
workgroups' science needs under the five strategies (listed in Section 1.2)
and to identify future science activities.
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2.0 IMPLEMENTATION
Below we describe several major science and research activities under
the five strategies. These activities will be carried out with existing
resources, provided these resources remain available.
2.1 Activities
Building Scientific Capacity Among Tribal
Environmental Professionals
EPA has a long history of supporting capacity building
among tribal environmental professionals, primarily through
its partnership with the Institute for Tribal Environmental
Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona University. The
Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) has supported this
project for over 15 years. Consistent with our trust
responsibility to tribes, OAR works with Tribes to increase
their capability to address their environmental concerns.
OAR supports the training and educational efforts of ITEP
in the areas of air quality and climate change impacts and
adaptation planning, as well as the work of the Tribal Air
Monitoring Support (TAMS) Center, which builds and
strengthens the technical capacity of tribal staff. The
TAMS Center cross-trains tribal air professionals on air
monitoring, indoor air quality, radon and asthma. EPA is
building on this model to develop an Environmental Justice
Community Learning Center.
Strategy 1: Apply integrated transdisciplinary
and community-based participatory research
approaches with a focus on addressing multi-
media, cumulative impacts and equity in
environmental health and environmental
conditions.
Activity 1.1: Establish an Integrated
Transdisciplinary ORD Research Program on
Environment and Community Health -Sustainable
and Healthy Communities Research Program.
The new Administration at EPA and in particular in
ORD recognizes that fragmented research programs
cannot solve 21st century environmental challenges
including disparities in environmental health. ORD
is leading the way by integrating 12 research
programs that were mostly media-specific into four
transdisciplinary programs aligned with EPA's new
Strategic Plan. As part of this re-structuring, ORD is
fully establishing and supporting a new integrated transdisciplinary
research program on environment and community health known as
"Sustainable and Healthy Communities." This program seeks to adopt a
more holistic view of environment and health as its conceptual
framework, take on research projects that address many of the topics
raised at the Symposium, and conduct research in a manner consistent
with principles of community-based participatory research. Both ORD
intramural and extramural resources from existing human health, land,
sustainability, and ecosystems research programs would be directed to
support this new program. For this new research program to be
successful, implementation of many of the recommended actions on
capacity building within ORD and incorporating community perspectives
is critical.
As part of the new Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research
Program (SHCRP), EPA's new Science to Achieve Research (STAR) grant
solicitations are being considered to support tribal community
environmental health research and to establish Centers of Excellence on
Environment and Health Disparities to examine the joint impacts of social
and physical environmental conditions, processes and systems on health
in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National
Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD)
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Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities
• ORD's new research program is responsive to suggestions from
stakeholders to create and institute a new scientific research
approach that develops a more holistic understanding of the
environmental and health. This approach will also integrate
perspectives from community residents and leaders, community-
based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and community
health and environmental quality advocates in the development of
EPA's scientific research agendas, as well as in data collection,
conduct of risk and exposure assessments, and risk management
decisions.
• The hallmark of the integrated proposed transdisciplinary approach is
"systems thinking," which seeks to understand the complex
interactions between social, natural, and built environmental
systems, conditions and policies that impact human health and well-
being. To explicitly address environmental justice concerns, this
program will need to direct its attention to how these complex
interactions result in unequal environmental health conditions or
disproportionate impacts among (diverse) disadvantaged population
groups, communities, neighborhoods and individuals.
• Anticipated outcomes of this program include new information and
tools to support more holistic environmental decision making at
national, regional, state, tribal, and local levels. It is anticipated that
this program will also inform strategies for alleviating systemic drivers
of racial and socio-economic disparities in environmental health
outcomes and access to healthy environments.
Impacts on EPA Programs and Activities
• The Assistant Administrator for ORD announced the re-structuring of
ORD's 12 media-specific research programs into four integrated
programs in Fall 2010. The Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Research Program is an important part of this effort. This new
program is currently in the early stages of organizing and
development. Input from EPA program offices will be sought in early
2011. Then in late spring, input from outside stakeholders will be
solicited. Bringing together diversity of disciplines to plan and
implement integrated research programs will make EPA more
effective at developing sustainable solutions to complex, 21st century
environmental problems. It will create a culture where different
disciplines are encouraged to find innovative solutions and will make
EPA's research more timely, relevant and responsive to the short-,
medium- and longer-term needs of our partners and stakeholders.
Several external advisory committees continue to recommend this
approach.
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Timeframe
• Establish and fully support a Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Research Program (Fiscal Year [FY] 2011).
• Incorporate ideas and concerns from stakeholders and
representatives from disproportionately impacted communities and
populations (FY 2011).
• Issue joint Request for Applications (RFA) or other funding
mechanisms to collaborate with NIH National Institute on Minority
Health and Health Disparities to establish Centers of Excellence on
Environment and Health Disparities (FY 2012).
Activity 1.2: Develop technical guidance, analytic methods, tools and
data to advance the integration of environmental justice in EPA's decision
making.
EPA's regulatory decision making is informed by scientific data and
analysis. To facilitate the process of using scientific data, EPA scientists
and decision makers, as well as communities, community advocates and
other stakeholders, require consistent and systematic guidance on how to
conduct these analyses. They also depend on scientifically valid tools and
methods, as well as information communicated by environmental data.
While the guidance, methods, tools, and data for advancing
environmental health protection has been an area of significant
investment by EPA, these tools of the trade have not been fully adapted
or developed to specifically address environmental justice issues.
EPA's commitment to integrating environmental justice in all of its
decisions, policies, and programs has resulted in investments to develop
technical guidance, analytic methods, tools, and data. For example, EPA
is in the process of developing guidance entitled "Technical Guidance for
Incorporating Environmental Justice into Rulemaking Activities" through
Plan EJ 2014's Incorporating Environmental Justice into Rulemaking
Implementation Plan. This document is expected to aid EPA staff and
managers in incorporating environmental justice into EPA's analytical
frameworks such as risk assessment, and economic analysis, and other
scientific and policy assessments.
EPA's OAR is piloting several kinds of analyses that are useful in informing
managers about the potential environmental justice implications of air
rulemakings. OAR is evaluating and testing several analytical approaches
including: (1) proximity-based socio-demographic analyses, which
highlight the characteristics of those living closest to sources of air
pollution; (2) exposure and health risk modeling that breaks out data
based on socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., race, income); and (3)
benefits mapping that shows the distribution of benefits of a regulation
to various socio-demographic groups. OAR expects to learn from their
experiences in using these approaches. OAR will revise its methods
accordingly, as it seeks to do a better of job of identifying rules that may
present environmental justice concerns and to understand more fully the
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implications of air rules on overburdened populations. OAR's experiences
will help to inform the overall Agency effort to develop the technical
guidance.
ORD plans to evaluate existing tools developed by ORD scientists with
respect to appropriateness and ease of use for lay experts in
communities. To improve access to Agency tools, ORD plans to work with
stakeholders to develop a series of free regionally-based trainings on
EPA's information and assessment tools. ORD also plans to partner with
EPA regional offices, other federal agencies, and consortia of
environmental justice and community health non-profits and community-
based organizations to host community-based tools workshops and
Regional Tools Summits. There will be a specific focus on tools to
evaluate environmental justice and health disparities policies and
programs.
ORD proposes to continue to develop cumulative risk/impact assessment
techniques and analytics, tools, and mapping methods that can be
applied at multiple geographic scales. For example, ORD has committed
$8 million in research investment through STAR grants on cumulative risk
assessment methods that incorporate community social contexts (non-
chemical stressors) and indicators of population vulnerability (see
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/cumulativerisk). The Agency will ensure
research results from these new STAR grants on cumulative risks, and
chemical and non-chemical stressors are well disseminated and used by
EPA program offices.
ORD's Office of the Science Advisor (OSA) and the National Exposure
Research Laboratory (NERL) have launched an initiative to develop a web-
based cumulative risk assessment tool, the Community Cumulative
Assessment Tool (CAAT). This tool will enable a more complete and
thorough evaluation and understanding of physiological and
socioeconomic stressors that result in cumulative impacts in U.S.
communities and populations. This broader framework for decision
making leads to inherently more sustainable outcomes as a result of a
more complete understanding of the factors constituting and contributing
to risk in identified populations.
The CCAT is designed to implement a multi-media approach to
cumulative risks in communities facing environmental justice issues; and
will leverage datasets, research, and certain Geographic Information
System (GIS) capabilities that were developed for C-FERST in the
Communities and Cumulative Risk Research Program in ORD. The CCAT
will also reflect the cumulative impact considerations outlined in the
"Technical Guidance for Incorporating Environmental Justice into
Rulemaking Activities" and provide insight on environmental justice to
the Risk Assessment Forum (RAF) Technical Panel developing the EPA
Cumulative Risk Assessment (CRA) Guidelines. The project is directly
responsive to the recognition that vulnerability and health disparities are
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interrelated and must be studied within the risk assessment paradigm.
The developers of the CCAT will engage with environmental justice and
community-based stakeholders to inform the development of the CCAT
and related Agency cumulative risk assessment guidelines. This approach
purposely builds skills among EPA scientists to design research and risk
assessment protocols informed by collaboration with affected
communities.
At the March 2010 Symposium, participants requested EPA to develop
easy-to-use GIS tools. ORD's National Atlas of Ecosystem Services is
developing an Urban Atlas, which will include high-resolution mapping for
100-250 populated areas selected along several gradients of concern
(e.g., size, location, demographics, and environmental and health
condition). It will feature selected small towns and rural communities,
including rural Tribal lands. By mapping the current availability of "green"
infrastructure and applying existing models for pollutant removal, water
storage, and other functions, ORD's National Atlas will estimate the
extent to which ecosystem services contribute to the basic needs of
populated places.
Additionally, the Atlas will reveal under-served areas where
management to enhance specific ecosystem services would
benefit community health and well-being. This local component
of the Atlas will include demographic mapping to identify
overburdened sub-populations that may benefit
disproportionately from "green" infrastructure and/or are
disproportionately underserved. The Atlas will permit
stratification of urban and other populated areas to develop
separate estimates of ecosystem services for communities
identified as socially vulnerable. Additionally, it will incorporate
accessible health data to map aspects of population susceptibility
to diminished or degraded services. EPA is conducting this
project in collaboration with multiple federal agencies, including
the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as academic
and other educational organizations. EPA regions and ORD's
Human Health Research Program are interacting with
communities to identify priority issues and build capacity for
working with mapping tools to inform risk evaluation and
management decisions.
EPA's ORD is also developing an Environmental Quality Index tool for
measuring county level environmental quality, which will increase
understanding about how multiple stressors simultaneously contribute to
health disparities in minority, low-income, tribal, and indigenous3
populations.
When these terms are used in this document, they refer to entities and individuals in the United
States only
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Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities
• The development of guidance, methods, tools, and data to advance
the integration of environmental justice into EPA's decision-making
processes is responsive to several comments provided by
stakeholders. For example, these activities address suggestions that
EPA consider the areas of policy, capacity building, and promoting
healthy and sustainable communities. These stakeholder comments
recommend EPA to: (1) develop analytic and assessment tools and
data collection approaches that can be used by community health
advocates and environmental justice groups; (2) adopt multi-media
cross-program approaches to addressing cumulative environmental
exposures in stakeholder communities, as well as restructuring risk
assessment to better account for multiple stressors; (3) increase
community capacity to assess their environment; (4) develop a more
holistic understanding of environment and health; and (5) integrate
environmental justice in all its decisions. Better integration of
environmental justice into EPA's decisions directly benefits
communities impacted by EPA's regulatory activities. The
overarching goal of developing these tools of the trade is to aid EPA
staff to develop regulatory options that fully protect the health and
environment of all people, as well as help communities to better
understand their environmental problems.
• Community-based "stakeholders" will benefit from CCAT through
access to improved information that integrates their own
understanding of local conditions with data drawn from EPA's
databases. Depending upon application, benefits may include
improved capacity to collaborate with Agency experts, identify
priorities, and pursue risk reduction strategies to improve public
health and the environment.
• Key outcomes of the Urban Atlas will be to inform community
members and decision makers as to how natural resources are critical
community assets, and how their absence or degradation may be
contributing to cumulative burdens on human health and well-being.
Furthermore, the integrated, multi-media approach of the Urban
Atlas will provide information on the co-benefits accrued to the
community when applying ecosystem services to mitigate specific
environmental contaminants or other priority health risks.
Impacts on EPA programs and activities
• These actions are also responsive to several core focus areas of EPA's
Plan EJ 2014 and the principles on environmental justice articulated
in EPA's Strategic Plan for 2011-2015. It is also responsive to the
mandate in EO 12898 which requires that EPA identify and address
disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental
effects of its policies, programs and activities on minority, low
income, and tribal populations.
• Results produced by the new research grants on cumulative risks and
impacts will demonstrate successful approaches to incorporating
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community knowledge into the development of such tools and the
application of qualitative approaches and social science methods into
cumulative impact assessments. EPA's programs will benefit from the
development of the CCAT through engaging with stakeholders to
address the community-based assessment of cumulative risks with
environmental justice concerns.
Intensive engagement with environmental justice stakeholders will
improve the incorporation of these issues in the design of the CRA
Guidelines. The CCAT will improve the capacity of EPA regional risk
assessors to assist communities in understanding the complexity of
risk, and provide the means by which to identify priorities. Also the
CRA-EJ software will assist programs in implementing the planned
"Technical Guidance for Incorporating Environmental Justice into
Rulemaking Activities" by facilitating a step-by-step approach to
evaluating cumulative risks and impacts. More broadly the CRA
Guidelines will affect risk-based decision making across the full range
of EPA's programs, nationally, regionally, and more locally. The CCAT
is a project under the RAF CRA Technical Panel, and will directly
incorporate environmental justice into CRA and thus introduce
environmental justice risk-based considerations throughout EPA's
policies and decision making.
The process for developing these tools, data, methods, and guidance
will lead to innovative approaches and tools for incorporating
environmental justice concerns in EPA's regulatory and policy
decision making. Other innovations include identifying research
needs and data gaps on topics such as environmental public health
indicators to assess disparities, equity impact assessment methods,
metrics to assess inequities in risk assessments to support rule
making, and policy and program evaluation. ORD plans to bridge
these data gaps through both intramural and extramural research
programs.
Initial community interaction for the development of the Urban Atlas
will proceed through EPA's existing initiatives such as the CARE and
Environmental Justice Showcase Communities programs and the
EPA/U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)/U.S.
Department of Transportation (DOT) Partnership for Sustainable
Communities, and their EPA liaisons. Information about ecosystem
services will expand options for improving community health and
well-being, and clarify economic and other trade-offs involved in
alternate environmental mitigation and remediation decisions. The
selection of focal areas along several gradients is designed to
facilitate the application of observed linkages between community
welfare and ecosystem services to additional populated places of
concern to EPA.
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Timeframe
• Develop final draft of technical guidance by FY 2013.
• Develop and refine screening tools that identify air rules that raise
potential environmental justice concerns (FY 2011).
• Determine the analytical tools are most appropriate for particular
types of air rulemaking (FY 2011-12).
• Identify any additional analytical tools that may be needed to better
understand the environmental justice implications of air rulemakings
(FY 2011-12).
• Host community-based tools workshop(s) and Regional Tools
Summits with focus on environmental justice and health disparities,
to solicit recommendations and inform EPA's actions on tools under
Plan EJ 2014 (FY 2012-13).
• Develop final Environmental Quality Index (Long term).
• Beta test a prototype of the CCAT in early 2012.
• Complete first phase of the Urban Atlas will be completed in FY 2013;
incorporate additional populated areas will begin in FY 2012 and FY
2013, contingent upon funding.
Strategy 2: Incorporate perspectives from community-based
organizations and community leaders into EPA research agendas and
engage in collaborative partnerships on science and research to address
environmental justice.
A few initiatives are highlighted here to better engage with communities
in EPA science activities and implementation of regulatory programs.
Activity 2.1: Establish Community Engagement Initiative.
OSWER has launched the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI),
www.epa.gov/oswer/engagementinitiative/. which is designed to
enhance OSWER and regional offices' engagement with local
communities and stakeholders (e.g., state and local governments, tribes,
academia, private industry, other federal agencies, non-profit
organizations) to help them meaningfully participate in government
decisions on land cleanup, emergency preparedness and response, and
the management of hazardous substances and waste.
Activity 2.2: Re-engage with National Environmental Justice Advisory
Committee.
ORD intends to establish a health and research workgroup or
subcommittee within National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee
(NEJAC) to advise the EPA Administrator and ORD in the area of scientific
research, health impacts, and environmental risks and exposures that
directly relate to environmental justice. An initial task of the workgroup
will be to advise ORD on the development of the Sustainable and Health
Communities Research Program.
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Activity 2.3: Support Community-based Participatory Research.
Participatory research methods will be integrated into the new ORD
research program on Sustainable and Healthy Communities and new
extramural research solicitations to support CBPR are under
consideration. A significant feature of the Sustainable and Health
Communities Research program will be community and regional based
projects. Applying participatory research methods will be the hallmark of
this new program within ORD. Community-based participatory research
(CBPR) fosters more complete understandings of the existing interactions
between environmental conditions, human health and ecosystems.
Researchers, practitioners, community members, and funding institutions
have increasingly recognized the importance of comprehensive, holistic,
and participatory approaches to environmental research and later stages
of intervention. For EPA, applying CBPR in its scientific research and
program planning promises to lead to more appropriate solutions for the
persistent and uneven social disparities in health as well as access to
clean and safe environments.
Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities
• These actions are in agreement with suggestions from environmental
justice stakeholders to integrate perspectives from community
residents and community leaders in the development of the EPA's
scientific research agendas as well as in data collection.
• OSWER's CEI will include direct outreach to state and local
governments, tribes, academia, private industry, other federal
agencies, and non-profit organizations. The CEI is designed to help
stakeholders have meaning participation in EPA's decisions on land
cleanup, emergency preparedness and response, and the
management of hazardous substances and waste. It will also improve
OSWER efforts to protect human health and the environment
through site cleanups and other risk reduction activities.
• Re-establishing a NEJAC health and research workgroup or
subcommittee would provide a critically needed formal mechanism
for environmental justice stakeholders, community-based
organizations to provide input and feedback into the EPA/ORD
research initiatives. Presently, ORD lacks any mechanism for public
input into its research agenda. If concerns about environmental and
health inequalities are not "on the table" they will be not be
addressed by the EPA research enterprise. However it must be
recognized that a NEJAC subcommittee cannot be the only approach
for soliciting the contribution of environmental justice stakeholders.
ORD will need to identify additional approaches for soliciting input
and collaborating with environmental justice stakeholders (e.g.,
through regional outreach, the Regionally Applied Research Effort
(RARE) program, and partnering with EPA program offices and other
federal agencies). Creating formal mechanisms for receiving
stakeholder input assures that community wisdom, perspectives and
values are duly considered and accommodated in the development of
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ORD's new program. Moreover, such mechanisms assure that the
results of this program, which subsequently influence decision
making at EPA, also consider robust community input.
Impacts on EPA programs and activities
• Nearly all of OSWER programs and activities will be impacted by the
various CEI actions. The CEI is designed to enhance OSWER and
regional offices' engagement with local communities and
stakeholders, and to help them meaningfully participate in
government decisions on land cleanup, emergency preparedness and
response, and the management of hazardous substances and waste.
• The first task for this NEJAC workgroup could be to advise ORD on
developing the Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research
Program initiative, which is currently being discussed. Since this
research program is in its early stages of development, engaging a
NEJAC workgroup now could be extremely beneficial to ORD to help
set the course, identify critical research questions that should be
addressed and how best to solicit input and potential partnerships
with community-based organization and environmental justice
leaders such as hosting public forums on the Sustainable Community
Environments and Public Health research program.
Timeframe
• Each of the CEI actions has defined deliverables and timeline for their
completion. Nearly all of the actions have significant deliverables due
in FY 2011.
• Incorporate ideas and concerns from stakeholders and
representatives from disproportionately impacted communities and
populations (FY 2011).
• Establish a NEJAC workgroup on research by FY 2012.
• Issue joint RFA or other funding mechanism to collaborate with NIH
National Institute Minority Health and Health Disparities to establish
national research Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health
Disparities (FY 2012).
Strategy 3: Leverage partnerships with other federal agencies on issues
of research, policy, and action to address environmental and health
disparities.
Environmental justice and related concerns for health inequalities are
complex and multi-dimensional. Solutions to these societal problems
require intersectoral and intergovernmental actions. Environmental
justice is not solely EPA's responsibility, just as health disparities cannot
be seen solely as a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
problem. At present, governmental approaches to promoting and
managing health and it determinants, namely the environment, are
fragmented. Symposium participants recognized in order to achieve
environmental justice, a multi-stakeholder, multi-system approach is
required. Within federal agencies, we need to strengthen federal
interagency collaboration to improve research that can impact
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environmental and health practice, programs, and policy and formulate
solutions for communities.
Activity 3.1: Join the Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities.
EPA's ORD will actively participate on the interagency Federal
Collaboration on Health Disparities Research (FCHDR) and represent EPA
on the Executive Steering Committee
(http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/fchdr/). The Executive Committee of the
FCHDR was created to bring together selected agency representatives to
seek practical solutions to advance health disparities research, and foster
greater federal coordination, collaboration, and communication around
the elimination of health disparities.
Federal departments represented on the Executive committee include:
• U.S. Department of Education
• National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• U.S. Department of Justice
• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• National Science Foundation
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
• HHS, Health Resources and Services Administration
• HHS, National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities
• HHS, Office of Minority Health
The FCHDR's goal is to ensure that health disparities research is
conducted as an integrated and inclusive field of study, rather than as an
aggregate of independent research activities occurring in separate
research domains. FCHDR members will work together to explore needs
and opportunities for pooling scientific expertise and resources to
conduct, translate, and disseminate research most needed to accelerate
the elimination of health disparities.
FCHDR goals and strategies are to:
1. Identify health disparities challenges including the scientific and
practical evidence most relevant to underpinning future policy and
action.
2. Increase and maintain awareness about federal government efforts
and opportunities to address health disparities.
3. Determine how evidence can be translated into practice to address
health disparities and promote innovation.
4. Advise on possible objectives and measures for future research,
building on the successes and experiences of health disparities
experts.
5. Publish reports that will contribute to the development of the FCHDR
strategic vision and plan.
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Activity 3.2: Engage with President's Task Force on Environmental Health
Risks and Safety Risks to Children.
EPA's OAR, the Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP), ORD, and
others are collaborating and participating with other federal agencies on
the newly re-established President's Task Force on Environmental Health
Risks and Safety Risks to Children. One focal area of their work is on
asthma disparities among minority and disadvantaged children. In early
December 2010, a Federal Workshop on Asthma Disparities was held in
Washington, D.C., to foster interagency coordination on development and
implementation of a detailed Federal Action Plan to address asthma
disparities.
Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities
• More coordinated federal approach to research, policy, and action to
address environmental justice health disparities.
Impact on EPA programs and activities
• EPA's participation in these three federal initiatives will identify and
create opportunities to combine resources to tackle issues of
disparities in health and access to clean environments; and will
increase access and exposure of all EPA offices, including ORD, to
non-traditional EPA disciplines such as social science and concepts
such as social determinants of health.
Timeframe
• ORD's participation with the federal collaboration is ongoing.
• Participation with other federal agencies on the President's Task
Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children to
work on asthma disparities among minority and disadvantaged
children that can be addressed through interagency coordination on
development and implementation of a detailed Federal Action Plan
(FY 2011-2015).
Strategy 4: Build and strengthen the technical capacity of EPA
scientists on conducting research and related science activities in
partnership with impacted communities and translating research
results to inform change.
Along with efforts to increase technical capacity in communities, EPA
needs to build up its capacity to work with communities in order for real
progress to be made. Several recommendations from the Symposium
address this issue and call for EPA to:
• Train EPA staff on effective outreach and dialog with communities;
• Develop capacity within the Agency.
• Provide training for EPA risk assessors and managers on community
engagement.
• Consider using qualitative approaches in risk assessment.
• Establish multi-disciplinary teams to work on issues.
• Encourage multidisciplinary teams in environmental health research.
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• Explore approaches for interacting with communities that can build
collective efficacy and social capital.
• Support participation of communities as equal partners in research;
include them as equal partners in the co-production of knowledge.
• Include community representatives and perspectives in the design of
studies/research.
Social science disciplines like social epidemiology indicate that EPA needs
to look more at upstream factors - social processes that ultimately
process the disparities in risks and health outcomes.
Activity 4.1: Provide training to EPA scientists on CBPR.
Both ORD and OSWER intend to provide training to scientists on
principles of community-based participatory research, health disparities,
and environmental justice. Both offices will look for opportunities to
collaborate on providing training for staff. For example, OSWER's
Community Involvement and Program Initiatives Branch (CIPIB) sponsors
a Community Involvement University (CIU) to provide training courses for
Superfund Program Community Involvement Coordinators (CIC) and
other EPA and EPA-affiliated staff. Participants are provided with the
necessary skills, techniques, and practices to engage the community in
the Superfund process. CIU offers a variety of courses each year at
regional offices and at national conferences or training events. These
courses could be offered to ORD scientists and modified to address
community-engagement in more of the research context.
In order to design appropriate capacity training program, ORD will first
evaluate current understanding and research capacity of ORD sciences
regarding principles of community-based participatory research, health
disparities, and environmental justice. ORD will then design and
implement training for its staff.
Activity 4.2: Build Social Science Capacity within ORD.
The National Center for Environmental Research (NCER) is developing an
ORD research agenda for behavioral and social sciences as they impact
and affect environmental protection as well as the evolution of
environmental policy. Environmental justice consideration will be critical
to this research agenda. ORD will conduct Individual and focus group
interviews of behavioral and social science experts to solicit their
thoughts and identify the most relevant current research as well as
known gaps in four areas: behavioral economics, decision theory,
management science, and risk perception. Following the expert
interview, NCER will host a workshop with the scientific leaders identified
through the interview phase (30-50 people).
NCER plans to establish a cooperative agreement with a professional
society concerned with applying the social science research to
contemporary environmental health issues. This effort is intended to
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help ORD devise approaches and methods for truly incorporating the
social sciences into its research and assessment activities. Activities
under the cooperative agreement could include:
• Providing training to ORD staff on incorporating qualitative
approaches and social science methods into cumulative impact
assessments.
• Developing approaches to incorporate community knowledge in such
tools for cumulative impact assessments.
• Offering webinars and training to cultivate analytical skills among
ORD staff to examine the social and economic systems that create
cumulative adverse environmental impacts in communities.
Activity 4.3: Develop Environmental Justice Risk Management Training
forOPP.
The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) has created a new training module
as a part of its regular staff training program to ensure that
environmental justice and sensitive population considerations are fully
incorporated and more clearly characterized in the pesticide risk
assessment process. The training module consists of two components:
(1) addressing general background on environmental justice, and (2)
integrating environmental justice considerations through OPP risk
management to address environmental justice issues identified by the
risk assessments.
Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities
• Impacted communities and environmental justice leaders should see
improved interactions with Agency scientists.
• The goal of OPP's training is to provide the tools to better identify
potential environmental justice issues. Enhanced risk assessment
methodologies will result from a closer and more focused look at the
toxicity and exposure patterns specific to each pesticide and pesticide
use that could present a disproportionate risk. Areas now considered
in pesticide risk assessment (hazard assessment, dietary exposure,
occupational and resident exposure, incident data) will be considered
through an environmental justice lens.
Impact on EPA programs and activities
• We anticipate that the capacity of Agency scientists to conduct
research in partnership with impacted communities, to understand
and employ social science methods in environmental research, and
translate research results to inform change will be greatly improved.
This will help ORD's Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research
Program meet its objectives.
• The OPP training program will improve how environmental justice is
incorporated by risk managers. This training is expected to influence
pesticide registration and re-registration decisions to more robustly
incorporate environmental justice considerations. To date, 10
training sessions on the first component and a total of 160 OPP staff
completed the training.
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Timeframe
• Host scientist to scientist workshop on behavioral and social sciences
(late FY 2011).
• Design a research capacity training program for ORD scientists, which
could include self-paced training on community-based and
participatory research CBPR offered by Michigan Public Health
Training Center and joint courses through OSWER's Community
Involvement University (FY 2012-2013).
• Complete the new OPP module on risk management training by early
FY 2012. The goal will be to have 100 percent of risk assessors and
managers trained by the end of FY 2012.
Strategy 5: Build and strengthen technical capacity of community-
based organizations and community environmental justice and health
leaders to address environmental health disparities and environmental
sustainability issues.
Community capacity has been defined as "a set of dynamic community
traits, resources, and associational patterns that can be brought to bear
for community-building and community health improvement" (Norton et
al 2002). "Community capacity building activities" are those designed to
increase community capacity and emphasize (1) assets and
empowerment (versus disease and deficiency); (2) the role of bottom-up,
community-determined processes and agendas (versus top-
down/externally determined ones); and (3) the processes for developing
community competence.
The commissioned paper on community-capacity presented at the March
2010 Symposium identified important domains of action to strengthen
community capacity, including leadership, participation, skills, resources,
social and organizational networks, sense of community and
understanding of community history, community power, community
values, community cohesion, language capacity, and community
information.
(See
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/events/calendar/2010/marl7/papers.html)
In addressing all of these domains, strategies for enhancing community
capacity may include training and technology transfer, technical
assistance, community-based participatory research, empowerment
approaches, community organizing, and social action. Commissioned
paper authors noted that capacity-building strategies that give more
control to communities (e.g., CBPR, empowerment, and community
organizing) may more fully address the fundamental causes of
environmental disparities than more Agency-controlled processes (e.g.,
training and technical assistance).
(See
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/events/calendar/2010/marl7/presentations/fr
eudenberg.pdf)
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These community-driven strategies are more labor and resource intensive
and require a higher level of commitment from communities,
researchers, and agencies, as well as a new set of capabilities on the part
of Agency personnel with regard to the skills needed to, for example,
facilitate meetings, communicate clearly, and create an atmosphere of
inquiry and trust.
In order to more effectively reduce disparate environmental exposure
and engage the public in making environmental policy decisions, the EPA
must engage relevant constituencies in participation processes early,
provide these constituencies with the resources and information that can
contribute to effective participation, and ensure that the outcomes
reflect participation. Specifically, helping communities develop the
capacities to create, access, use, and interpret scientific information and
changing Agency practices to better incorporate community voices in
scientific activities and decisions will be a key and proper task for EPA.
EPA, therefore, proposes the following actions to establish programs and
provide federal government support to increase technical and scientific
capacity in communities.
Activity 5.1: Build Awareness and Community Capacity to Address
Asthma Disparities.
In response to the growing asthma problem where minority, low-income,
tribal, and indigenous populations are disproportionately affected, EPA's
OAR established the Asthma Program to promote scientific understanding
of environmental asthma triggers and ways to manage them. The
program collaborates with partners to support research and educate the
public about asthma and ways to manage environmental triggers.
Partners include government agencies, universities and research centers,
the health care community, nonprofit organizations, and community
programs. Major program activities center around the Communities in
Action for Asthma Friendly Environments initiative, and include support
for real time peer-to-peer learning, technology transfer and resources for
community-based asthma programs through an online network
(www.AsthmaCommunityNetwork.org). "pacing" events (National
Asthma Forum, regional events and webinars), and support to non-profit
organizations focused on health care provider training, improving school
environments and raising public awareness about asthma (see also
Supporting Community-Based Action Programs, Strategy 2, Activity 3).
Activity 5.2: Build Tribal Community Capacity to Monitor Air Quality.
OAR has a long history of supporting capacity building among tribal
environmental professionals, primarily through its partnership with the
Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona
University, which OAR has supported for over 15 years. Consistent with
our trust responsibility to tribes, OAR works with tribes to increase their
capability to address their environmental concerns. OAR supports the
training and educational efforts of ITEP in the areas of air quality and
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climate change impacts and adaptation planning, as well as the work of
the Tribal Air Monitoring Support (TAMS) Center, which builds and
strengthens the technical capacity of tribal staff. The TAMS Center cross-
trains tribal air professionals on air monitoring, indoor air quality, radon,
and asthma (see also Supporting Community-Based Action Programs,
Strategy 2).
Activity 5.3: Increase Citizen Participation in Science and Decisions.
ORD proposes to create a program, in partnership with other
governmental agencies, private non-profits, professional societies, and
private foundations, to develop the capacity of community leaders to
understand the role of science in decision making and influence the
decision-making process and on the use of data and other information to
document disparities and concerns in their communities.
Activity 5.4: Establish Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health
Disparities.
Several new extramural research solicitations are under consideration to
fund research that address specific research needs and topics raised at
the March 2010 Symposium and that fully employ CBPR approaches such
as establishing Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health
Disparities. The aim for these Centers will be to examine the joint
impacts of social and physical environmental conditions and processes on
health, link with community health clinics to increase their capacity to
address occupational and environmental health concerns of their
constituents, and design policy solutions to ameliorate and prevent
disparities.
Activity 5.5: Build diverse environmental workforce and enhancing the
capacities of Minority Academic Institutions (MAI) to engage in scientific
research and workforce training
The National Center for Environmental Research's (NCER) Fellowship
Program is implementing several initiatives to strengthen EPA's efforts to
encourage and support environmental justice research among the next
generation of environmental scientists and engineers. For example,
Environmental justice research topics are highlighted in the STAR
Fellowships RFA and environmental justice considerations have been
included as review criteria under "Broader Societal Impacts" for all
fellowship applications.
As part of the Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) fellowship, NCER has
a goal of enhancing capacity at academic institutions that are not well
funded for environmental research capacity, including HBCUs. ORD
considers ineligible those institutions identified as receiving more than
$35 million in annual federal research. NCER has increased resources
allotted to the GRO program to increase GRO funded students, which can
enhance our efforts in this area.
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OSWER will support research through the Faculty and Student Teams
(FaST) Program, a cooperative effort between the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) Office of Science and the National Science Foundation
(NSF). Faculty from colleges and universities with limited research
facilities and those institutions serving populations, women and
minorities underrepresented in the fields of science, engineering, and
technology are encouraged to apply for the FaST program. The FaST
program will support a team comprised of one faculty member and two
to three undergraduate students. The program provides hands-on
research opportunities in the DOE or EPA national laboratories during the
summer. The faculty member identifies a mutually beneficial research
area amenable to collaboration by the faculty member and the laboratory
scientist.
The EPA Region 6 University-Community Partnerships initiative will
facilitate and nurture a partnership between universities and community
groups to increase overburdened communities' capacity to address their
environmental challenges through technical assistance. Memorandums
of Understanding (MOU) are in place between EPA Region 6 and the
University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) and EPA Region 6, EPA's Office of
Water and Texas A&M Kingsville.
Within the federal government, EPA has been a leader in the use of
collaborative approaches to accomplish strategic goals and objectives.
Learning from this rich experience can help the Agency realize the full
potential of collaborative processes and accelerate environmental
progress. The ability to collaborate effectively with MAIs will become
more important as the growing complexity of environmental problems
will require diverse approaches to developing innovative solutions.
Failure to tap into MAIs represents a missed opportunity for advancing
environmental protection and stewardship. For example, MAIs in the
Southeast and the Southwest could be leveraged for strategic projects
targeting climate change impacts and adaptation, and engaging
populations that are vulnerable to climate change.
Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities
• These capacity-building actions can help the public to address
environmental health issues and to allow them to effectively
participate in environmental health decision making and will
increased confidence that concerns about the power dynamics
between academic, government researchers, and communities will
be taken seriously.
• Actions undertaken by the Asthma Program will equip stakeholder
communities and organizations to assess, organize and sustainably
deploy community resources to reduce or eliminate exposure to
asthma triggers, and improve health outcomes and the quality of life
for people with asthma. The actions help support and strengthen the
capacity of health care and environmental professionals, schools, and
community-based organizations to develop comprehensive asthma
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care strategies in partnership with impacted communities and to
spread their results to accelerate improvements across the national
asthma care landscape.
• Through the partnership with ITEP, tribes are better able to fashion
their own responses to environmental issues including climate
change, and have a better understanding of how they can effectively
participate in the environmental decision making of federal, state and
local regulatory agencies.
• Research through the proposed Centers of Excellence will be specially
aimed at benefiting disadvantaged, undeserved, and environmentally
overburdened communities or groups.
• Requiring NCER fellowship applicants to consider and explain the
environmental justice implications of their research will help develop
a new generation of environmental scientists, engineers, and policy
makers who are cognizant of environmental justice -related issues
that can arise in research and thus adjust approaches accordingly to
promote broad environmental protection.
• Increasing the reach of the GRO program will promote research and
training at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), which may have
special expertise on environmental justice matters.
• Through the Region 6 partnerships with University of Texas and Texas
A&M Kingsville, EPA will increase knowledge about best approaches
for community-university partnerships.
Impact on EPA programs and activities
• The Communities in Action initiative and the online Network, Asthma
Community Network will surface important, field-tested community
strategies that the Asthma Program will use to bolster the Agency's
national asthma education and outreach efforts.
• When tribal perspectives are effectively communicated, EPA is more
cognizant of Tribal issues and is able to make more informed and
responsive decisions concerning its rules, programs and policies. As
tribes take more responsibility for implementing air programs, EPA
may be able to reduce some of its implementation efforts.
• The proposed research-oriented activities will help institute program
development and strategic institutional change within EPA. The goal
is to increase democratization in the conduct of and community
access to EPA/ORD research. The proposed activities will produce: (1)
consistent and validated principles of community engagement in
research for ORD and EPA programs; (2) improved science and
research results that are more relevant to environmental problems
faced by the public and more effectively translated to inform policy
change and intervention; and (3) inclusion of environmental justice
considerations as review criteria that serve as a model for other
competition-based EPA programs. These results will promote a
culture that considers environmental justice implications in all
agencies funding actions and activities.
• The process of increasing the reach of the GRO program will translate
into stronger outreach to MSIs and highlight the critical role MSIs play
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in the nation's research and development enterprise to solve pressing
environmental protection challenges.
• The intent of Region 6's existing MOU's are to: (1) improve the quality
of environmental science and technical education; (2) increase the
relevance of UTEP research projects to EPA's environmental and
public health mission; and (3) increase number of culturally diverse
students electing to pursue graduate study and research careers in
areas including science, engineering, and mathematics. It is expected
that UTEP's capacity to develop environmental specialists for
potential EPA employment will be significantly enhanced while
important contributions will be made to EPA's overall research and
developmental programs.
Timeframe
• Support and grow an online community network of stakeholders that
serves as a real time resource for mentoring and collaboration to
support community asthma management programs (FY 2011 and
ongoing).
• Develop web-based tools that facilitate collaboration, problem
solving, and learning among leaders of asthma programs (FY 2011
and ongoing).
• Facilitate knowledge transfer among stakeholders through EPA
sponsorship of "pacing" events, including the National Asthma
Forum, regional events and webinars for community-based asthma
programs (FY 2011 and ongoing).
• Train health care professionals to improve their ability to integrate
the assessment of environmental factors into a comprehensive,
culturally appropriate asthma care plan, based on national standards
of care (FY 2011 and ongoing).
• Continue funding for ITEP and the TAMS Center (ongoing).
• Continue OAR involvement in developing ITEP's curriculum and
training, and oversight of the TAMS Center (ongoing).
• Institute a pilot program on "meet the decision-makers" on
environmental health and environmental justice that would
accommodate up to 15 community leaders (FY 2013).
• Issue joint RFA or other funding mechanism to collaborate with NIH
National Institute Minority Health and Health Disparities to establish
national research Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health
Disparities (FY 2012).
• Highlight Environmental Justice Research topics in the STAR
Fellowships RFA (ongoing).
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Community outreach and engagement plans are integrated into the
individual science actions described above. The most significant science
actions that will include community outreach and partnerships are ORD's
Sustainable and Health Communities Research Program, OSWER's
Community Engagement Initiative and the extramural research funding
under consideration.
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3.0 DELIVERABLES
Strategy 1: Apply integrated transdisciplinary and community-based
participatory research approaches with a focus on addressing multi-
media, cumulative impacts, and equity in environmental health and
environmental conditions.
ACTIVITIES
Activity 1.1: Establish
an Integrated
Transdisciplinary ORD
Research Program on
Environment and
Community Health -
Sustainable and Healthy
Communities Research
Program.
DELIVERABLES
Research program framework
developed (ORD - SHCRP
Team).
Regional listening sessions to
gather input from
communities. Incorporate
ideas and concerns from
stakeholders and
representatives from
disproportionately impacted
communities and populations
(ORD - SHCRP Team).
RFA to support Extramural
research on Tribal
Community Health (ORD -
NCER).
RFA to support Extramural
research to support Centers
of Excellence on Environment
and Health Disparities (ORD
- NCER).
MILESTONES
February
2011
Spring 2011
FY2012
FY2012
Activity 1.2: Develop
technical guidance,
analytic methods, tools
and data to advance the
integration of
environmental justice in
EPA decision making.
Environmental Justice
Technical Guide (ORD, OEJ,
OP).
Community Cumulative
Assessment Tool (CCAT)
(ORD - NERL and OSA).
Environmental Quality Index
Tool (ORD - NHEERL).
Regional Tools Summits
(ORD - OSP and SHCRP
Team).
Environmental justice
screening tools for air rules
(OAR).
Urban Atlas (ORD -
NHEERL).
FY2013
EarlyFY2012
Long-term
FY2012-
2013
FY 2011 -
2012
First phase
complete FY13
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Strategy 2: Incorporate perspectives from community-based
organizations and community leaders into the EPA's research agendas
and engaging in collaborative partnerships on science and research to
address environmental justice.
ACTIVITIES
Activity 2.1: Establish
Community Engagement
Initiative (OSWER).
DELIVERABLES
Conduct training of OSWER
staff on CBPR(OSWER).
MILESTONES
Ongoing
Activity 2.2: Re-engage
National Environmental
Justice Advisory
Committee.
Establish a research
workgroup under NEJAC to
advise ORD on the
development of the
Sustainable and Health
Communities Research
Program (ORD - NCER and
OSP; OEJ).
FY2012
Activity 2.3: Support
Community-Based
Participatory Research.
RFA to support extramural
research on Tribal
Community (ORD-NCER).
RFA to fund Extramural
research to support Centers
of Excellence on Environment
and Health Disparities (ORD
- NCER).
Regional listening sessions to
gather input from
communities. Incorporate
ideas and concerns from
stakeholders and
representatives from
disproportionately impacted
communities and populations
(ORD - Rick Linthurst and
SHCRP Team).
FY2012
FY2012
Spring 2011
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Strategy 3: Leverage partnerships with other federal agencies on issues
of research, policy and action to address environmental and health
disparities.
ACTIVITIES
Activity 3.1: Join the
Federal Collaboration on
Health Disparities.
IELIVERABLES
Potential collaboration on
research funding with sister
federal agencies; better
coordination of research
needs on health disparities
across federal government
(ORD).
MILESTONES
Ongoing
Activity 3.2: Engage
with President's Task
Force on Environmental
Health Risks and Safety
Risks to Children.
Federal Action Plan to
address asthma disparities
(OCHP, ORD, OAR).
FY2011-
2015
Strategy 4: Build and strengthen the technical capacity of EPA scientists
on conducting research and related science activities in partnership with
impacted communities and translating research results to inform change.
ACTIVITIES
Activity 4.1: Provide
training to EPA
scientists on CBPR.
DELIVERABLES
Survey ORD scientists' needs
and awareness about
CBPR(ORD - OSP and
NCER).
Develop a training plan for
ORD scientists (ORD - OSP
and NCER).
Collaborate with OSWER to
modify and offer courses
under the Community
Involvement University (ORD
and OSWER).
MILESTONES
FY2012
2013
FY2012
2013
FY2012
2013
Activity 4.2: Build
Social Science
Capacity within ORD.
Host scientist to science
workshop on behavioral and
social sciences (ORD-NCER).
An ORD research agenda for
behavioral and social sciences
(ORD-NCER).
Cooperative Agreement with a
Social Science professional
society (ORD- NCER).
FY 2011
2012
FY2012
2013
FY2012
2013
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development
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ACTIVITIES
DELIVERABLES
Activity 4.3: Develop
Environmental Justice
Risk Management
Training forOPP.
Training module to ensure
environmental justice and
sensitive population
considerations are fully
incorporated and more clearly
integrated throughout OPP risk
management processes
(OPP).
100% of OPP risk assessors
and managers properly trained
on environmental justice in risk
management (OPP).
MILESTONES
By early
FY2012
End of
FY2012
Strategy 5: Build and strengthen technical capacity of community-based
organizations and community environmental justice and health leaders to
address environmental health disparities and environmental
sustainability issues.
ACTIVITIES
Activity 5.1: Build
Community Capacity to
Address Asthma
Disparities.
DELIVERABLES
Establish an online community
network available to
stakeholders as a year-round
resource for mentoring and
collaboration and designed to
support community asthma
management programs (OAR).
Develop web-based tools that
facilitate collaboration, problem
solving, and learning among
leaders of asthma programs
(OAR).
Hosting the National Asthma
Forum and Awards Program
and regional pacing events for
community-based programs
(OAR).
Train health care
professionals, to improve their
ability to integrate the
assessment of environmental
factors into a comprehensive,
culturally appropriate asthma
care plan, based on national
standards of care (OAR).
MILESTONES
FY 2011 and
ongoing
FY 2011 and
ongoing
FY 2011 and
ongoing
FY 2011 and
ongoing
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development
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ACTIVITIES
Activity 5.2: Build
Tribal Community
Capacity to Monitor Air
Quality.
DELIVERABLES MILESTONES
Continue funding for ITEP and • Ongoing
the TAMS Center (OAR).
Activity 5.3: Increase
Citizen Participation in
Science and Decisions.
Cooperative agreement to
support a citizen scientist
fellowship program - a meet
the decision makers" on
environmental health and
environmental justice (ORD-
NCER).
FY2013
Activity 5.4: Establish
Centers of Excellence
on Environment and
Health Disparities.
RFA to support Extramural
research to support Centers of
Excellence on Environment
and Health Disparities (ORD -
NCER)
FY2012
Activity 5.5: Build
diverse environmental
workforce and
enhancing the
capacities of MAI to
engage in scientific
research and workforce
training.
Highlight environmental justice
research topics in the STAR
Fellowships RFA. Include
environmental justice
considerations as review
criteria under "Broader Societal
Impacts" for all fellowship
applications (ORD-NCR)
Support research through the
FaST Program and provide
university faculty and students
to have hands-on research
opportunities in DOE or EPA
national laboratories (OSWER)
Establish a University-
Community Partnerships
initiative to provide technical
assistance to local community
groups and increase number of
culturally diverse students
electing to pursue graduate
study and research careers
(Region 6).
Completed
and ongoing
Ongoing
To be
determined
(TBD)
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development
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vvEPA
There is no overall reporting plan for the science activities at this time.
However, program reporting may occur by the individual program offices
responsible for each activity. For information, please contact Devon
Payne-Sturges, 703-347-8055, Payne-Sturges.Devon@epa.gov; or Chris
Saint, 202-564-9839, Saint.Chris@epa.gov.
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 34
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v°/EPA
:'..-..
Brulle RJ and Pellow DN (2006). Environmental Justice: Human Health and
Environmental Inequalities. Annual Review of Public Health. Vol 27: pp
103-24.
CSDH (2008). Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through
action on the social determinants of health. Final Report of the
Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Geneva, World Health
Organization.
Gee GCand Payne-Sturges DC. 2004. Environmental Health Disparities: A
Framework Integrating Psychosocial and Environmental Concepts.
Environmental Health Perspectives. VOLUME 11, NUMBER 17. pp!645-
1653.
Habermann M and Gouveia N. 2008. Environmental Justice: an
ecossocial health approach. RevSaude Publica 42(6). Pp 1 - 7.
Krieger N. 2001. Theories for social epidemiology in the 21st century: an
ecosocial perspective. International Journal of Epidemiology. Vol 30: pp
668- 677.
Morello-Frosch RA. 2002. Discrimination and the political economy of
environmental inequality. Environment and Planning C: Government and
Policy. Volume 20, pages 477 - 496
Morello-Frosch R. and Shenassa ED. 2006. The Environmental
"Riskscape" and Social Inequality: Implications for Explaining Maternal
and Child Health Disparities. Environmental Health Perspectives.
VOLUME 114. NUMBERS. Pp. 1150 - 1153.
Norton B, Mcleroy K, Burdine J, Felix M, and Dorsey A. 2002. Community
capacity: Concept, theory and methods, in DiClemente R, Crosby R, Kegler
M, eds. Emerging Theories in Health Promotion Practice and Research.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schulz AJ, Williams DR, Israel BA, Lempert LB. 2002. Racial and Spatial
Relations as Fundamental Determinants of Health in Detroit. The Milbank
Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 4. Pp 677-707.
Wakefield S.E.L and Baxter J. 2010. Linking Health Inequality and
Environmental Justice: Articulating a Precautionary Framework for
Research and Action. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. Volume 3, Number 3.
pp 95-102.
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 35
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&EPA
CARE
CBPR
CEI
C-FEST
CIC
CIPIB
CIU
CCAT
DOE
DOT
EO 12898
EPA
FaST
FCHDR
FY
CIS
GRO
HBCU
HHS
HUD
ITEP
MAI
MOU
MSI
NCER
NCMHD
NEJAC
NERL
if"'""!! 'lll'ill •
Community Action for a Renewed Environment
Community-Based Participatory Research
Community Engagement Initiative
Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening
Tool
Community Involvement Coordinator
Community Involvement and Program Initiatives
Branch
Community Involvement University
Community Cumulative Assessment Tool
U.S. Department of Energy
U.S. Department of Transportation
Executive Order 12898
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Faculty and Student Teams (Program)
Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities
Research
Fiscal Year
Geographic Information System
Greater Research Opportunities (fellowship)
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development
Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals
Minority Academic Institutions
Memorandum of Understanding
Minority Serving Institution
National Center for Environmental Research
National Center on Minority Health and Health
Disparities
National Environmental Justice Advisory
Committee
National Exposure Research Laboratory
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development
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NGO
NHEERL
NIH
NSF
OAR
OCHP
OCSPP
OP
OPP
ORD
OSA
OSP
OSWER
OW
RAF
RARE
RFA
SHCRP
STAR
TAMS
UTEP
Non-governmental organization
National Health and Environmental Effects
Research Laboratory
National Institutes of Health
National Science Foundation
Office of Air and Radiation
Office of Children's Health Protection
Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution
Prevention
Office of Policy
Office of Pesticide Programs
Office of Research and Development
Office of the Science Advisor
Office of Science Policy
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Office of Water
Risk Assessment Forum
Regional Applied Research Effort Program
Request for Applications
Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research
Program
Science to Achieve Research (grant)
Tribal Air Monitoring Support (Center)
University of Texas El Paso
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development
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&EPA
Symposium participants recommended several actions to reduce research
or data gaps, overcome limitations in the theories and methods for
conducting environmental research, particularly research supported by
federal government, and limitations in practice of risk assessment. The
science recommendations are described below. The first sentence is a
summary statement meant to capture the main points of the individual
recommendations from the Symposium that follow, including
recommendations from the Environmental Justice-Caucus letter that was
sent to Lisa Garcia, Senior Advisor to EPA Administrator for Environmental
Justice.
1. Create and institute a new scientific research approach to develop
more holistic understanding of environment and health. One of the
potential outcomes of this new framework is to inform environmental
policies related to environmental justice and address environmental
health disparities. Several recommendations from the symposium point
to EPA to adopt a more holistic view of the environment and the impacts
on population health: "[the] EPA/ORD's research agenda needs to be
reframed, inequality and inequity needs to be a part of the discussion
[and research]; there needs to be a shift to not only look at risks and
exposures, but to consider root and fundamental causes, need to start
where it (inequality) begins; [the] EPA likes to start the analysis and
research at a level that does not address the history and root causes of
health endpoints, risks and exposures; analyze the environment in a
broader context, evaluate the interaction between the social and the
physical environments; a better framework is needed for combining
physical and psychosocial science in research and practice; use social
determinants of health and health disparities research framework to
conduct research on cumulative impacts/risks; encourage
multidisciplinary teams in environmental health research; develop the
science of interactive effects; social science disciplines like social
epidemiology indicate that [the] EPA needs to look more at upstream
factors - social processes that ultimately process the disparities in risks
and health outcomes; develop measures for the social environment; test
the validity of available vulnerability indices and tools; encourage
multidisciplinary approach to research and analysis; address the role of
institutionalized racism in poor community environmental health;
encourage the consideration of environmental justice in land use
planning; and conduct research with direct policy implications - not
research for the sake of research."
Further, the Environmental Justice-Caucus participants recommend that
"[the] EPA should develop a plan to ensure incorporation of the concept
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 38
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of vulnerability, particularly its social and cultural aspects in the Agency's
research agendas" and "... in consultation with environmental justice
constituencies, incorporate community principles in its funding guidelines
for research in environmental health and planned and existing actions
that adversely impact public health and quality of life."
2. Integrate perspectives from decision makers such as community
residents, community leaders, community-based NGOs and community
health and environmental quality advocates in the development of
EPA's scientific research agendas as well as in data collection, conduct of
exposure/risk assessments and risk management decisions.
A common recommendation articulated in both the Environmental
Justice-Caucus letter and through discussions the Symposium is the need
to incorporate community perspectives in the development of EPA's
science/research agendas and in the conduct of exposure/risk
assessments. Signatories to the Environmental Justice-Caucus letter
recommend that "[the] EPA and other publicly funded research require
the expertise of environmental justice communities in the research
design, implementation, recommendations and programmatic design that
may result from the research" and "[the] EPA should develop a plan to
ensure incorporation of the concept of vulnerability, particularly its social
and cultural aspects in the Agency's research agendas." Related
recommendations from the Symposium state "include community
representatives and perspectives in the design of studies/research;
communities would like to be involved as [the] EPA sets its research
priorities and agenda as well as the regulatory agenda and priorities; and
there needs to be a research workgroup formed within the NEJAC."
Although the following recommendations from the Symposium stem
from discussions on regulatory actions and capacity building, they also
suggest that EPA/ORD needs to approach its research planning and its
contributions to the development of Agency risk assessment guidance
differently: "create effective mechanisms to listen to community
concerns; develop culturally competent outreach processes. Hire local
community folks with cultural expertise and community knowledge; and
improve incorporation of exposure information for smaller communities
and population groups in national risk assessments."
3. Create EPA funding mechanisms for community-based participatory
research (CBPR) and transdisciplinary research, with a specific focus on
studies that will benefit disadvantaged, undeserved, and
environmentally overburdened communities or groups. The
Environmental Justice-Caucus letter states that "affected communities
need to be involved in the conduct of research to insure that that results
are disseminated in an effective and understandable manner and that
research recommendations are reviewed by the community." Similar
recommendations were made at the Symposium including "support/fund
community originated and owned research; increase support/funding for
community based participatory research; support participation of
communities as equal partners in research; include them as equal
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 39
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partners in the co-production of knowledge; include community
representatives and perspectives in the design of studies/research."
Further, Environmental Justice-Caucus letter recommends that EPA
should also "develop a set of guidelines for federal environmental health
research that would require community participation with binding ethical
and Title VI guidelines for federally funded researchers in [environmental
justice] communities and tribal nations." This is consistent with
comments raised at the symposium encouraging "federal funders of
University researchers to address the unequal power dynamic that often
arises between Universities and impacted communities that are subject
of environmental and public health research."
4. Collaborate with other federal government agencies on research,
policy-making and other kinds of actions to address environmental
health disparities. Many comments were made about the need to
strengthen interagency efforts: "to address [environmental justice], need
interagency collaboration; government approach to promoting and
managing health is fragmented; agencies need to work together to
formulate solutions for communities; other agencies should integrate
[environmental justice] in all their activities."
5. Enhance the capacities of Minority Academic Institutions (MAI) to
engage in scientific research and workforce training. For instance, help
MAI institutions to provide training opportunities for minority students in
relevant scientific disciplines. Several statements were made at the
Symposium that there was a lack of diversity in the academic institutions
represented at the meeting and as presenters. HBCUs need to be
involved in this new and expanded area of research on environmental
health disparities.
6. Develop and implement a multi-media approach to cumulative
contamination exposures in environmental justice communities.
Restructure risks assessment practice to better account for multi-
stressors that cumulatively impact community and population health
and recognize that the concepts that vulnerability and health disparities
are interrelated. These recommendations from the Environmental
Justice-Caucus letter echo many of the concerns and other
recommendations raised at the Symposium on the topic of cumulative
impacts. Comments from the Symposium include "communities see their
environment as a whole not pieces; [the] EPA needs to address the issue
of non-concordance between risk assessment results and community
experience; vulnerability should be an integral part of cumulative risk
assessment even it must be analyzed using qualitative measures;
incorporate social vulnerabilities and cultural risks in risk assessments and
cumulative risks/impact assessments; incorporate background risk in risk
assessment; consider using qualitative approaches in risk assessment;
adopt a quality of life approach; risk assessment should move away from
individual lifestyles to one that considers the social context; focus on
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 40
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&EPA
health and well-being as opposed to risk, illness and death; [the] EPA
should recognize that stressors in communities that are unaccounted for
are not considered in risk assessments; adopt a systems approach to risk
assessment and decision making; and [the] EPA should use information
on cumulative impacts in all its decisions."
7. Establish programs and provide federal government support to
increase technical and scientific capacity in communities. This capacity
building can help the public to address environmental health issues and
to allow them to effectively participate in environmental health
decision making. The Environmental Justice--Caucus letter
recommends that "grant/funding programs be expanded to provide
support directly to [environmental justice] communities, [environmental
justice] organizations and networks, Tribes and Native organizations to
assess and act on [environmental justice] issues." Additionally Symposium
participants advocated that "[the] EPA include community-based
organizations, leaders and residents in the co-production of knowledge
and the scientific bases for environmental decision-making; make
resources available to develop technical skills of community leaders on
science and decisions; develop technical expertise within the
communities; and commit resources to develop networks and
centers/consortia with universities to support community groups with
technical matters and participation in decision-making."
8. Develop analytic and assessment tools, and data collection
approaches that could be used by community health advocates and
environmental justice groups. Availability of appropriate tools and
training on use of such tools would also help increase technical capacity
of communities. For example recommendations include "work with local
governments to provide access to data sources; influence their [local
governments] data collection approaches; develop mapping tools that
communities can use; encourage community engagement in the
collection of data by government; explore the approach of using
communities to collect data to overcome limitations of government data
such as privacy issues and poor geospatial resolution; and develop zoning
maps that are accessible to communities; regional councils of
government can provide accurate city level data for community
research."
9. Build capacities and skills among EPA/ORD staff and scientists to
conduct research and other science related activities in equal
partnership with impacted communities. This step must include
diversifying EPA's technical and scientific expertise in the social
sciences. Concomitant with efforts to increase technical capacity in
communities, EPA/ORD needs to build up its capacity to work with
communities in order for real progress to be made. Several
recommendations from the Symposium address this issue: "train EPA
staff on effective outreach and dialog with communities; develop capacity
within the [A]gency; provide training for EPA risk assessors and managers
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 41
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on community engagement; consider using qualitative approaches in risk
assessment; multi-disciplinary teams are needed to work on issues;
encourage multidisciplinary teams in environmental health research;
social science disciplines like social epidemiology indicate that EPA needs
to look more at upstream factors - social processes that ultimately
process the disparities in risks and health outcomes; explore approaches
for interacting with communities that can build collective efficacy and
social capital; support participation of communities as equal partners in
research; include them as equal partners in the co-production of
knowledge; and include community representatives and perspectives in
the design of studies/research."
10. EPA and other agencies should integrate environmental justice in all
EPA activities, including policy making, regulatory actions, research and
public outreach. An important place for intervention for environmental
justice is regulation and rule-making. Example recommendations from
the Symposium on the use of science and information to address
environmental justice concerns in decision making include "develop
measures of environmental health disparities to monitor temporal and
spatial trends in disparities, and also whether environmental regulation is
effective; stratify research data by race and income to better analyze
disparate impacts; account for differences in the effect of lead on
hypertension which is more pronounced in chronically stressed
individuals in regulatory assessments and policies; develop tools for
equity assessment; test the validity of available vulnerability indices and
tools; base decisions on good science that passes the tests of reliability,
repeatability and peer review; good data are legally defensible; and
present policy choices and equity impacts to Administrator as a standard
consideration in decision-making."
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 42
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For more information on Plan EJ 2014, visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of
Environmental Justice website at: http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/plan-ej7
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