A Scoping Review of Capacity-Building Efforts to Address Environmental Justice Concerns

Abstract

Environmental justice (EJ) efforts aimed at capacity building are essential to addressing environmental health disparities; however, limited attention has been given to describing these efforts. This study reports findings from a scoping review of community–academic partnerships and community-led efforts to address environmental inequities related to air, water, and land pollution in the United States. Literature published in peer-reviewed journals from January 1986 through March 2018 were included, and community capacity theory was applied as a framework for understanding the scope of capacity-building and community change strategies to address EJ concerns. Paired teams of independent analysts conducted a search for relevant articles (n = 8452 citations identified), filtered records for content abstraction and possible inclusion (n = 163) and characterized selected studies (n = 58). Most articles implemented activities that were aligned with community capacity dimensions of citizen participation (96.4%, n = 53), community power (78%, n = 45), leadership (78%, n = 45), and networks (81%, n = 47); few articles identified a direct policy change (22%, n = 13), and many articles discussed the policy implications of findings for future work (62%, n = 36). This review synthesizes three decades of efforts to reduce environmental inequities and identifies strategic approaches used for strengthening community capacity.

Using the Community Engagement Framework to Understand and Assess EJ-Related Research Efforts

“…Research methods for the systematic search and scoping review are described in Williamson et al [61]. In brief, 58 peer-reviewed studies published from January 1986 to March 2018 are used in the review and detail community-academic partnerships and community-engaged efforts employed to address environmental inequities related to air, land, and water pollution in the United States (see Appendix A Figure A1).…”

“…A standardized form was used to extract relevant data that identified the policy, system, or environmental (PSE) change target [62,63]; capacity-building and community change strategies; and levels of community engagement. Additional abstraction measures (further detailed in Williamson et al, 2020) include author discipline, research design, study setting, and population demographics.…”

“…Additional community strategies that did not fall within traditional academic-led research practices were author-identified [61] through an iterative process of reviewing EJ literature: civil disobedience, letter writing, litigation, media advocacy, partnership, coalition building, and policy advocacy (see Table 1 for measurement definitions and examples). [60]…”

“…Process by which community participants gain knowledge, skills, competencies, or technologies that enable them to participate in assessing and remediating environmental hazards and participating in relevant policy deliberations [60]. Direct Community Change Strategies (Author-Created) [61]…”

Environmental health risk relationships, responsibility, and sources of information among Vietnamese Americans in coastal Mississippi

“…By leveraging the skills and knowledge of both community members and researchers, CBPR improves the applicability and use of research findings. In public health, the approach is utilised as a means to improve community health and well-being (Israel et al, 1998) and it is often used as a strategy for building community capacity to address environmental health concerns (Williamson et al, 2020). In line with CBPR principles, the research topic for this study was identified by community members and data collection was carried out by both academic researchers and community organisation staff.…”