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May 2003 | Volume 1, Number 8
Promoting
the Environmental Justice
& Health Union mission, Catalyst identifies training,
research, policies, events, and funding opportunities that
foster partnerships to eliminate environmental disease in
poor minority communities within the United States. To do
that, Catalyst depends on information submitted by an advisory
board of environmental health professionals and environmental
justice activists as well as our readers.
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TOOLBOX
Accessing environmental health research
More than twenty-five colleges nationwide operate community
outreach and education program research centers (COEPs)
that are dedicated to making environmental health research
accessible to the public.
Community environmental health projects
The CDC currently funds almost 100 community environmental
health projects. Go to the CDC
extramural funding website and enter community in the
project description category to learn more about those projects.
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ADVISORY
BOARD
Lynn Battle
Executive Director, Citizen's
Lead Education & Poisoning Prevention (Birmingham, AL)
Michael
Green
Executive Director, Center
for Environmental Health (Oakland, CA)
Swati
Prakash
Environmental Health Director, West
Harlem Environmental Action (New York, NY)
Alejandra
Tres
Executive Director, Association
of Environmental Health Academic Programs (Portland,
OR)
The Environmental Justice and Health Union is an independent
project of the Center for
Environmental Health
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The
Next Step...
The environmental justice movement is in flux. While the
environmental justice summit last fall included reports
of numerous local successes, efforts by the movement to
ensure government agencies provide equal protection to low-income
communities of color have met with mixed results. The national
advisory committee on environmental justice (NEJAC)
has been an important forum for raising federal awareness
about local issues. But for the first time in nine years,
NEJAC will not convene. The interagency
working group on environmental justice emphasizes the importance of collaborations
between agencies to remedy environmental justice concerns.
But few of the agencies have reported success implementing
the environmental justice strategies they developed in the mid-90's for their own agencies
in response to the executive
order on environmental justice.
At the same time, more states
are developing environmental justice laws and policies.
However, such activities tend to focus on the environmental
protection agencies responsible for land use and cleanup
permits rather than health agencies. One survey
found that the primary state agency environmental justice
contacts were located in the state health department in
fewer than five of the fifty states. Thus, greater emphasis
is placed on public participation and the disproportionate
siting of industrial facilities in low-income communities
of color rather than more directly identifying and eliminating
environmental illness hotspots in such communities.
While some of the most visible activities of the environmental justice movement
have been well-organized protests of unwanted industrial facilities, the underlying
philosophy - to remedy past inequities and eliminate disparities - are cornerstones of
public health. Integration of environmental justice and environmental health will be vital
in the future.
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PARTNERSHIPS
Lead poisoning prevention coalitions
Parent
activists and health
educators have created groups to prevent lead exposure
to children in environmental justice communities. Additional
information about lead poisoning prevention coalitions is
available from the Alliance
to End Childhood Lead Poisoning.
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ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH
Gene-environment interaction
The NIEHS has completed the first phase of study examining
human genes that, through exposure to environmental toxins,
increase
the risk of environmental diseases such as cancer, asthma,
heart disease, and diabetes.
Asthma camps
Camps are available
to help young people better understand how to manage their
asthma while enjoying
the summer. Some of the camps offer scholarships.
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ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE
 States
The New
York Department of Environmental Conservation has issued
final guidelines for incorporating environmental justice
into state permit activities.
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SUBSCRIBE and PROVIDE
The
Catalyst
is an online newsletter sent monthly to Environmental
Justice & Health Union members.
Groups with annual budgets of less than $200,000 receive
free EJHU membership. The EJHU website (www.ejhu.org) includes
information for activists and professionals about training, research, and policies, EJHU membership, and past
issues of Catalyst. If you want to provide information to be considered for inclusion in Catalyst, include a contact name, website, and e-mail address. Please forward the information to ejhu@ejhu.org
or the following address:
Max Weintraub - Director
Environmental Justice and Health Union
528 61st Street, Suite
A
Oakland, CA 94609
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CLOSING DATES
May 1
William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation - New Environmental Constituencies
(West)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 1
Community Technology
Foundation (California)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 1
Environmental
justice activist retreat
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 9
Pathways
to collaboration
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 29
Impact Fund
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 30
Disparities
in healthcare
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 1
Community-partnered
interventions to reduce health disparities
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 1
Social
and cultural dimensions of health
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 18
Beldon
Fund
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EVENTS CALENDAR
May 1 - 3, Phoenix AZ
National
farmworker health conference
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 2 - 9, Atlanta GA
American
Occupational Health Conference
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 9, Seattle WA
Congressional
Black Caucus - National Environmental Policy Commission
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 13 - 15, Atlanta GA
Public
health information network stakeholders conference
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 15 - 16, Chicago, IL
Rrotocol
for assessing community excellence in environmental health
(PACE-EH) training
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 17, Riverside CA
Environmental
challenges in the Inland Empire
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 23 - 27, Washington DC
Health
and the Environment
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 29, Rockville MD
Interagency
working group for community-based participatory research
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
May 30 - June 1, Providence RI
Research
ethics in environmental health
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 4
Cross-cultural
communication in health care: Building organizational capacity
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 8 - 11, Reno NV
National environmental
health association
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 19 - 21, Washington DC
National conference
on Asthma
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 21 - 28, Houston TX
Disparities
in Health in America: Working Toward Social Justice
Return to EJHU or Catalyst
homepage
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