Community-driven research and capacity building to address environmental justice concerns with industrial air pollution in Curtis Bay, South Baltimore.

Autor:	Aubourg MA; Community Science and Innovation for Environmental Justice (CSI EJ) Initiative, Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States., Sawtell G; Community of Curtis Bay Association, Curtis Bay, Baltimore, MD, United States.; South Baltimore Community Land Trust, Curtis Bay, Baltimore, MD, United States., Deanes L; Community Science and Innovation for Environmental Justice (CSI EJ) Initiative, Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States., Fabricant N; Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Criminal Justice, Towson University, Towson, MD, United States., Thomas M; Community of Curtis Bay Association, Curtis Bay, Baltimore, MD, United States.; South Baltimore Community Land Trust, Curtis Bay, Baltimore, MD, United States., Spicer K; Community Science and Innovation for Environmental Justice (CSI EJ) Initiative, Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States., Wagar C; Community Science and Innovation for Environmental Justice (CSI EJ) Initiative, Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States., Campbell S; Community of Curtis Bay Association, Curtis Bay, Baltimore, MD, United States.; South Baltimore Community Land Trust, Curtis Bay, Baltimore, MD, United States., Ulman A; Community Science and Innovation for Environmental Justice (CSI EJ) Initiative, Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States., Heaney CD; Community Science and Innovation for Environmental Justice (CSI EJ) Initiative, Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States.; Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States.; Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	Frontiers in epidemiology [Front Epidemiol] 2023; Vol. 3. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Sep 12.
DOI:	10.3389/fepid.2023.1198321
Abstrakt:	Introduction: Curtis Bay (CB) is an environmental justice (EJ) community in South Baltimore. With a high concentration of industrial polluters and compounding non-chemical stressors, CB has experienced socioeconomic, quality of life, and health burdens for over 100 years. Today, these polluters include the open-air CSX Coal Terminal, waste-to-energy incinerators, and heavy diesel traffic through residential areas. The Community of Curtis Bay Association, Free Your Voice, and South Baltimore Community Land Trust are local organizations enacting a vision for equitable, healthy, and community-led development without industrial encroachment. In response to community-identified EJ concerns and an explosion at the CSX Coal Terminal, CB community groups partnered with academic researchers to develop a community-driven hyperlocal air monitoring and capacity building approach. This paper describes this approach to characterizing hyperlocal air quality in CB, building bridges between community residents and regulatory agencies, and nurturing a cohesive and effective community-academic partnership toward EJ. Methods: Using hyperlocal air monitoring, we are collecting real-time air pollution (particulate matter, black carbon, and ground-level gas species) and meteorological data from 15 low-cost sensors in residential and industrial areas of CB. We also use trail cameras to record activities at the CSX Coal Terminal. We merge air pollution and industrial activity data to evaluate the following: overall air quality in CB, multi-air pollutant profiles of elevated events, spatiotemporal changes in air quality in the community, patterns of industrial activity, and potential correlations between air quality and observed industrial activity. Members of our partnership also lead a high school course educating students about the history and ongoing efforts of the EJ movement in their community. Students in this course learn how to employ qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to bring scientific support to community EJ concerns. Results and Discussion: Our hyperlocal air monitoring network and community-academic partnership are continuing to evolve and have already demonstrated the ability to respond to community-identified EJ issues with real-time data while developing future EJ leaders. Our reflections can assist other community and academic groups in developing strong and fruitful partnerships to address similar EJ issues. Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest. For the contents of this paper, technical representatives from QuantAQ (https://quantaq.com/) and Distributed Sensing Technologies (DSTech: https://www.dstech.io/) provided input about data quality control and quality assurance but did not contribute to analysis and interpretation of data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit it for publication.
Databáze:	MEDLINE
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