MGH Guides: Power, Privilege, and Positionality: Health at the Intersection of Race and Environmental Justice (Summer 2024-Spring 2025)

How Do Race and Environmental Justice Shape Your Life List
Read through the list and give yourself a point for each item that is true for you.
Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth
Read through this summary of Tara Yosso's 2005 article. She uses the "Community Cultural Wealth" framework to discuss how people's identities and positionalities come with social and environmental assets. We encourage you to look at the article summary and challenge yourself to consider the challenges and assets of different positionalities.

Reflection Questions

What did you notice as you went through the list and identified your points? How might your selections be affected by your positionality?
How do you think it might be different for someone else with different positionality?
What historical or current policies or norms may have contributed to these patterns you observed? How have you seen this in your own environment?
How can you be attentive to the well-being and needs of yourself and others, given the range of social experience people may have?

Sharpening Your Intersectional Analysis

The following articles describe the intersecting power structures related to race, environmental justice and health.

What Environmental Justice Means in Indian Country
Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2017, March 6). PBSSoCal. https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/earth-focus/what-environmental-justice-means-in-indian-country
The Link between Climate Change, Health and Poverty
Holder, C. (2020, March). TEDMED. https://www.ted.com/talks/cheryl_holder_the_link_between_climate_change_health_and_poverty
COVID-19 and Climate Change: Crises of Structural Racism
Healy, J. P., Jensen, A., Belen Power, M. McKibben, B., Cohen, G., & Basu, G. (2022). Journal of Climate Change and Health, 5, Article 100092. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2021.100092

Highlighting Specific Cases

The following materials highlight specific cases related to health at the intersection of race and environmental justice.

'Environmental Racism' Leaves another Majority Black City in Michigan with Undrinkable Water
(2021, October 26). PBS News Hour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/daily-news-lessons/2021/10/benton-harbors-black-community-fuming-over-environmental-racism-water-crisis
An Unfair Burden: Why Environmental Justice Means Cleaner Air for Cities Like Chelsea, Mass
Appalachian Mountain Club. (n.d.). https://www.outdoors.org/resources/amc-outdoors/conservation-and-climate/an-unfair-burden-why-environmental-justice-means-cleaner-air-for-cities-like-chelsea-mass/
Chinatown in a 'High Exposure Zone' for Unregulated Air Pollutants, Study Shows
Moon, A. (2022, April 1). WBUR. https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/04/01/boston-chinatown-pollution

Please select one of the environmental justice cases that you read about: how do you see race and environmental justice impacting healthcare access and health experiences in the US? If you lived in that community, what would you personally need from your healthcare providers and/or healthcare system?
As members of the IHP community whose mission is to prepare “health professionals and scientists to advance care for a diverse society through leadership in education, clinical practice, research, and community engagement,” what do you see as your role in influencing and/or making healthcare more equitable?
These readings have focused on health, race, and environmental justice, are there other social categories you think might be important? How and why?

Environmental Racism: A Tool for Exploring the Enduring Legacy of Redlining on Urban Environments
Rand. (n.d.). https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TLA1456-1/tool.html
Chinatown: A Boston Neighborhood Guide
WBUR. (2023, September 1). https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/09/01/chinatown-boston-massachusetts-locals-field-guide
Past Racist "Redlining" Practices Increased Climate Burden on Minority Neighborhoods
Cusick, D., & E&E News. (2020, January 21). Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/past-racist-redlining-practices-increased-climate-burden-on-minority-neighborhoods/

Selected Resources on Environmental Justice from the IHP Climate Change, Climate Justice, and Health

Intersectional disparities in climate vulnerability and cancer risk
Ashad, B. K. C., Cruz, M., Bailey, Z. D., & Kobetz, E. K. (2023). American Cancer Society, 129(14), 2122-2127. https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.34817
tructural racism and health inequities in the USA: Evidence and interventions.
Bailey, Z.D., Krieger, N., Agenor, M., Granves, J., Linos, N., Bassett, M.T. (2017). Lancet, 389(10077), 1453-1463. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30569-X
CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index.
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. (2024, May 17). https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/placeandhealth/svi/index.html
Envisioning environmental equity: Climate change, health, and racial justice.
Deivanayagam, T. A., English, S., Hickel, J., Bonifacio, J., Guinto, R. R., Hill, K. X., Huq, M., Issa, R., Mulindwa, H., Nagginda, H. P., de Morais Sato, P., Selvarajah, S., Sharma, C., Devakumar, D. (2023). Lancet, 402(10395), 64-78. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00919-4
Connecting the dots between mass incarceration, health inequity, and climate change.
Prins, S. J., & Story, B. (2020). American Journal of Public Health, 110(S1), S35-S36. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2019.305470
Environmental racism and climate change: Missed diagnoses.
Salas, R. N. (2021). New England Journal of Medicine, 385(11), 967-969. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp2109160