Environmental Justice addresses the disproportionate environmental risks borne by low-income communities and communities of color resulting from poor housing stock, poor nutrition, lack of access to healthcare, unemployment, underemployment, and employment in the most hazardous jobs. Lead poisoning, asthma and poor housing conditions are of particular concern in Ingham County.
Environmental Justice initiatives of the Ingham County Health Department are coordinated according to the
"spectrum of prevention" model for eliminating
health disparities, as articulated by the Prevention Institute. Projects emphasize community engagement, community building, and capacity building approaches to
resident empowerment.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - Policies that Promote Health Model
"Environmental Justice is the right to a safe, healthy, productive, and sustainable environment, where 'environment' is considered in its totality to include the ecological, physical, social, political, aesthetic, and economic environment.
Environmental justice addresses the disproportionate environmental risks borne by low-income communities and communities of color resulting from poor housing stock, poor nutrition, lack of access to healthcare, unemployment, underemployment, and employment in the most hazardous jobs."
- National Association of City and County Health Officials
Environmental justice seeks to prevent diseases before their biological onset by preventing environmental exposures, attending to the
social determinants of health, and confronting
root causes explicitly.
The Coordinator of Environmental Initiatives at the Ingham County Health Department:
- Provides individual education and technical assistance
- Develops educational, informational and promotional materials and outreach strategies
- Coordinates, promotes and participates in:
- grant contracts
- workshops
- conferences
- presentations
- community events
- introductions to expand EJ community capacity
- coalitions
- health and community assessment
- health innovations
- policy, system and environmental changes
Objectives:
General Reports and Presentations:
Other Reports and Presentations:
(presentations and reports on specific objectives are located within the links listed above, these items are considered"other EJ practices and approaches)
EJ Capacity Building Materials
Other EJ Organizations, Initiatives, Laws and Reports: