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June 2003 | Volume 1, Number 9
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
Midwest legal assistance
Midwest
environmental advocates provide pro bono legal assistance
and have identified attorneys throughout the western Great
Lakes area who will assist community groups working for
environmental health.
Cultural competence
The California Endowment has produced a series of reports
on cultural competence principles
and standards, education,
and educational
resources. The Kaiser Family Foundation has also reviewed
cultural
competence initiatives nationwide.
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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...
By signing the recent $350 billion federal tax cut, President Bush has again
shown his interest in designing a budget that increases
the risk of environmental illness in low-income communities
of color. Working
class parents will not receive a child
tax credit at a time when state budget cuts are eliminating discretionary Medicaid coverage for them. Rural
physicians who receive lower payments than their urban counterparts for Medicare
and Medicaid patients, will continue to accept fewer and fewer patients with such coverage.
Nine out of ten Latino children live in families that receive no
benefit from the dividend provisions that account for the bulk of the tax cut. The end result is that those receiving the greatest tax refund
are those with the greatest access to healthcare and the least need for additional medical resources.
The day before signing the tax cut, President Bush authorized
a $984
billion increase in federal borrowing thus indicating
his belief that it is satisfactory for the national debt to climb
to record levels while healthcare funds for
those in need diminish. The government will collect less taxes,
but will borrow more and go further into debt.
And, as President Bush intends to encourage
Congress to extend some of the tax cut provisions that
expire in the next year or two, the cost may end up being
substantially greater than the initial $350 billion price
tag.
Such distaste for the financial and health needs of poor people,
and the particularly heavy burden imposed on low-income
communities of color, must be challenged. Organizations
like The Praxis
Project support environmental justice communities fighting
budget cuts that threaten to further diminish the health
resources available to them.
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PARTNERSHIPS
Asthma prevention coalitions
The National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP)
supports community
coalitions. The American College of Physicians has described
and examined the rapid
development of such coalitions.
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ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH
Subsistence anglers
"Fish
consumption and environmental justice" examines how
to protect the health and safety of communities of color
and low-income communities that consume or use fish, aquatic
plants, and wildlife.
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ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE
 Electronic communication
Information technology can be a tool
of empowerment for environmental justice groups by
identifying available environmental health date, displaying
(through GIS maps) correlations between socioeconomic variables
and environmental hazards, and providing diverse tools to
extend door-to-door grassroots organizing to the larger
community. One basic measure of the information technology
interest in environmental justice can be found in the doubling
of the number of visits received by the EPA environmental
justice website during the past year.
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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
June 1
Social
and cultural dimensions of health
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 1
Community-partnered
interventions to reduce health disparities
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 2
Racial
justice collaborative
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 15
Acorn
foundation
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 16
A territory resource
technical assistance grant (Northwest)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 18
Beldon
fund
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 24
Community
outreach partnership centers
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 27
EPA
asthma grant (Region 8)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
July 15
Community
initiatives to reduce asthma, diabetes and obesity
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
July 15
Local initiative funding
partners program
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EVENTS CALENDAR
June 1
Comments
due on California environmental justice strategy for pesticides
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June 4
Cross-cultural
communication in health care: Building organizational capacity
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June 8 - 11, Reno NV
National environmental
health association
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 9-13, Chapel Hill NC
Minority
health conference to eliminate disparities
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 11 - 12, Crystal City VA
Clean
Air Act advisory committee
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 19 - 21, Washington DC
National conference
on Asthma
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 21 - 28, Houston TX
Disparities
in health in America: Working toward social justice
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
June 23, Seattle WA
Eco-Justice
working group/Black church summit
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
July 16 - 19, Baltimore MD
National
association of local boards of health
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
July 20 - 22, Portland OR
Public participation
and GIS
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
July 22 - 25, Philadelphia PA
EPA community
involvement conference
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
July 31 - August 5, Santa Fe NM
Eliminating
health disparities in Indian Country
Return to EJHU or Catalyst
homepage
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