BACKGROUND


Overview
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) mission to protect human health and the environment embodies shared objectives with other sectors, including organizations at the local, regional, national, and international levels. EPA works to achieve its mission to protect human health and the environment through a variety of actions and decisions. Examples include regulatory activities (e.g., standard setting, permitting, enforcement, information/data collection, site cleanup). Other actions include programmatic activities, policy-making, scientific research, outreach, and education. Executive Order 12898, issued by President Clinton in 1994, requires EPA (and other federal agencies) to “identify disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority and low-income populations that may result from their programs, policies, and activities, and take action to address such disparities.” EPA’s mission supports the goals of identifying, analyzing, and generating evidence-based and sound information to address disadvantages and disparate impacts among specific groups within the U.S. population regarding their health and the environment. However, a more systematic and consistent approach is desired.

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, and other aspects of their diverse backgrounds. This complex interaction between the physical environment and other conditions of social disadvantage contributes to known social disparities in environmental health outcomes.

The EPA Office of Environmental Justice published a white paper in 2007 that describes “factors or conditions that EPA staff may look for when seeking to incorporate environmental justice considerations in a particular regulatory decision.” These factors are prevalent among minority and low-income populations and also are associated with environmental health impacts or disparities in environmental health impacts. Therefore, these factors may help EPA staff identify conditions in which minority and/or low-income communities may be exposed disproportionately to environmental harms and risks. These factors are:

  • 1) Proximity to what can be considered “environmental hazards,” or more specifically, risks, threats, or hazards to health and the environment;
  • 2) Susceptibilities and vulnerabilities;
  • 3) Pathways of exposure to environmental pollutants that are unique;
  • 4) Multiple and cumulative pollutant exposures/health impacts that may create disadvantages to specific individuals and groups;
  • 5) Community capacity to participate in the decision-making process of EPA;
  • 6) Physical infrastructure; and
  • 7) Chronic exposure to stress and the implications for health outcomes related to exposure to environmental hazards.

Disproportionate environmental health impacts/burdens in populations may result from one or more of the above factors or other factors/conditions not stated. For the purposes of this Symposium, the term “impact” refers broadly to consequences on human health and the environment that may be described by both qualitative and quantitative measures along the “environmental health continuum” from source of hazards or presence of hazard, to exposure, to health effect. The concept of disproportionate environmental health impacts and burdens refers to the finding that some populations systematically experience higher levels of exposure to environmental hazards, with related health risks, health impacts, and reduced quality of the physical environment than the general population. This perspective recognizes that multiple factors, including social, psychosocial, economic, physical, chemical, and biological determinants, may contribute to disproportionate human health or environmental impacts. Therefore, population-level disparities in these burdens and health impacts may be attributable to one or more combinations of inequities related to harmful exposures or differentials in the ability to withstand or mitigate harms. 

About the Symposium
At this Symposium, EPA aims to stimulate innovative and bold thinking and foster discussions on incorporating environmental justice considerations into EPA decision making and creating a baseline of understanding to inform discussions about the next steps. 

Symposium participants will examine the current state-of-the-science on factors associated with environmental health disparities, determine additional factors that should be considered, discuss types of data and methods for analyzing these factors, and discuss the implications for incorporating these factors in decision making. Participants will examine the evidence on social determinants of environmental health disparities or disproportionate impacts. In addition, participants also will explore current and alternative analytical and decisions frameworks to identify opportunities to incorporate consideration of environmental justice in environmental decision making at EPA to mitigate and prevent environmental health disparities. Data gaps and research needs are a common thread throughout the Symposium.

This Symposium is the first in a series of activities needed to advance EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s priority to include environmental justice principles in all of EPA’s decisions.

Objectives
The objectives of this Symposium are to:

  • 1) Describe the current state-of-the-science on factors associated with environmental health disparities to help understand how to incorporate these factors in decision making, and describe evidence of the contribution of social determinants to environmental health disparities or disproportionate impacts. 

  • 2) Explore a variety of frameworks, analytical tools, and methods for assessing the environmental health impacts of environmental programs, policies, and activities on disadvantaged populations (e.g., minority and low-income populations) and identify opportunities to apply these frameworks, methods, and tools in environmental decision making.

  • 3) Identify short-term and long-term preliminary goals that could serve as a blueprint for an action agenda, including research and data needs that are necessary to ensure that environmental justice concerns and social disparities in environmental health are incorporated in EPA’s decisions.

Outcomes
The anticipated outcomes from this Symposium are:

  • 1) Publications, including scientific papers, technical reports, etc., from the conversations or presentations at this Symposium.

  • 2) Short-term and long-term preliminary goals that could serve as a blueprint for an action agenda, including research and data needs.

Planning Committee Co-Chairs
Heather Case, Office of Environmental Justice, EPA
Onyemaechi Nweke, Office of Environmental Justice, EPA
Devon Payne-Sturges, Office of Research and Development, National Center for Environmental Research, EPA

Contributing Experts
Gilbert C. Gee, University of California, Los Angeles
Amy Kyle, University of California, Berkeley
Russ Lopez, Boston University
Rachel Morello-Frosch, University of California, Berkeley
Nsedu Obot-Witherspoon, Children’s Environmental Health Network
Robin Saha, University of Montana
Donele Wilkins, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice