Environment And The Community

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Art, Community and Environment investigates wide-ranging issues raised by the interaction between art practice, community participation, and the environment, both natural and urban. This volume brings together a distinguished group of contributors from the United States, Australia, and Europe to examine topics such as urban art, community participation, local empowerment, and the problem of ownership. Featuring rich illustrations and informative case studies from around the world, Art, Community and Environment addresses the growing interest in this fascinating discipline.

This ninth volume in the series deals with a fascinating and complex topic in the environment and behavior field. Neighborhoods and com munities are in various stages of formation and transition in almost every society, nation, and culture. A variety of political, economic, and social factors have resulted in the formation of new communities and the transformation of older communities. Thus we see nomadic people set tling into stable communities, new towns sprouting up around the world, continuing suburban sprawl, simultaneous deterioration, re newal and gentrification of urban areas, demographic changes in com munities, and so on. As in previous volumes, the range of content, theory, and methods represented in the various chapters is intended to be broadly based, with perspectives rooted in several disciplines-anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, urban studies. Although many other disciplines also play an important role in the study and understanding of neigh borhoods and community environments, we hope that the contributions to this volume will at least present readers with a broad sampling-if not a comprehensive treatment-of the topic.

US cities are faced with the joint challenge of our climate crisis and the lack of housing that is affordable and healthy. Our housing stock contributes significantly to the changing climate, with residential buildings accounting for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. US housing is not only unhealthy for the planet, it is putting the physical and financial health of residents at risk. Our housing system means that a renter working 40 hours a week and earning minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any US county. In Gray to Green Communities, green affordable housing expert Dana Bourland argues that we need to move away from a gray housing model to a green model, which considers the health and well-being of residents, their communities, and the planet. She demonstrates that we do not have to choose between protecting our planet and providing housing affordable to all. Bourland draws from her experience leading the Green Communities Program at Enterprise Community Partners, a national community development intermediary. Her work resulted in the first standard for green affordable housing which was designed to deliver measurable health, economic, and environmental benefits. The book opens with the potential of green affordable housing, followed by the problems that it is helping to solve, challenges in the approach that need to be overcome, and recommendations for the future of green affordable housing. Gray to Green Communities brings together the stories of those who benefit from living in green affordable housing and examples of Green Communities’ developments from across the country. Bourland posits that over the next decade we can deliver on the human right to housing while reaching a level of carbon emissions reductions agreed upon by scientists and demanded by youth. Gray to Green Communities will empower and inspire anyone interested in the future of housing and our planet.

Julian Agyeman once again pushes us all to think more critically about how to integrate two important political and intellectual projects.

This book offers a critical analysis of core concepts that have influenced contemporary conversations about environment-society relations in academic, political, and civil circles. Considering these conceptualizations are currently shaping responses to environmental crises in fundamental ways, critical reflections on concepts such as the Anthropocene, metabolism, risk, resilience, environmental governance, environmental justice and others, are well-warranted. Contributors to this volume, working across a multitude of areas within environmental social science, scrutinize underlying worldviews and assumptions, asking a common set of key questions: What are the different concepts able to explain? How do they take into account society-environment relations? What social, cultural, or geo-political biases and blinders are inherent? What actions or practices do the concepts inspire? The transdisciplinary engagement and reflexivity regarding concepts of environment-society relations represented in these chapters is needed in all spheres of society—in academia, policy and practice—not the least to confront current tendencies of anti-reflexivity and denialism.

By exploring the uniquely dense urban network of the Low Countries, Janna Coomans debunks the myth of medieval cities as apathetic towards filth and disease. Based on new archival research and adopting a bio-political and spatial-material approach, Coomans traces how cities developed a broad range of practices to protect themselves and fight disease. Urban societies negotiated challenges to their collective health in the face of social, political and environmental change, transforming ideas on civic duties and the common good. Tasks were divided among different groups, including town governments, neighbours and guilds, and affected a wide range of areas, from water, fire and food, to pigs, prostitutes and plague. By studying these efforts in the round, Coomans offers new comparative insights and bolsters our understanding of the importance of population health and the physical world - infrastructures, flora and fauna - in governing medieval cities.

Interest in environmental health research conducted with community participation has increased dramatically in recent years. In this book, Doug Brugge and H. Patricia Hynes relate experience of multiple community collaborations across the United States and highlight the lessons to be learned for those involved in or embarking on community-collaborative research. The volume brings together a variety of cases, examining the nature and form that the collaboration took, the scientific findings from the work and the ethical issues that needed to be addressed. Actual cases covered include lead contaminated soil, asthma and housing conditions, the impact of development on environmental health, the impact of radiation hazards, urban gardening, hog farming and diesel exhaust. The concluding section analyses the experiences of those involved and puts their findings into broader context. Community Research in Environmental Health: Lessons in Science, Advocacy and Ethics provides a valuable guide for all those interested and involved in community research.

This book examines and encourages the increasing involvement of those in the social sciences, including social work, as well as everyday citizens, with environmental injustices that affect the natural ecology, community health, and physical and mental health of marginalized communities. The authors draw on their diverse experiences in research, practice, and education to suggest interdisciplinary strategies for addressing environmental justice, climate change, and ecological destruction on both a local and global scale. This insightful work presents models for action, practice, and education, including field learning, with examples of how programs and schools have integrated and infused environmental justice content across their curricula. Environmental and ecological impacts on local communities as well as the whole ecology of life are examined. Models for engaging civic dialogue, addressing structural oppression, and employing other interdisciplinary responses to environmental injustices are provided. Topics explored among the chapters include: Water, Air, and Land: The Foundation for Life, Food, and Society Human Health and Well-Being in Times of Global Environmental Crisis Power and Politics: Protection, Rebuilding, and Justice Pathways to Change: Community and Environmental Transformation Decolonizing Nature: The Potential of Nature to Heal The Intersection of Environmental Justice, Climate Change, Community, and the Ecology of Life equips readers to identify the impact of the global environmental crisis in their own communities. Emphasizing the need for immediate action on ecological, climate, and environmental justice issues, this forward-thinking book assists social science professionals, educators, researchers, and other concerned individuals with the knowledge needed for creating meaningful interdisciplinary responses in their communities as they take action within a rapidly changing context.