Environmental Justice

What is Environmental Justice?

Environmental justice means equal access to a healthy environment for all people. Environmental justice also requires meaningful involvement in decision-making that affects the environment, health, and well-being of communities.

“Those cultural norms and values, rules, regulations, behaviors, policies, and decisions [that] support sustainable communities where people can interact with confidence that the environment is safe, nurturing, and productive.”
                                                 - Dr. Bunyan Bryant

Additional definitions are available from organizations such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and NC Executive Order 292.

Why does environmental justice matter for health?

Healthy communities require good environmental quality to achieve complete physical, mental, and social well-being (WHO, 1948). Unfortunately, polluting industries are much more likely to be in low-income communities and communities of color than in high-income, white communities. Environmental inequality contributes to racial and economic disparities in health and quality of life. Environmental justice initiatives can help remedy these health disparities.

What is NCDHHS doing to further environmental justice in NC?

NCDHHS established an Environmental Justice and Equity Lead in response to Governor Cooper's Executive Order No. 246 and continues to support the environmental justice (EJ) actions mandated by Executive Order No. 292.

In collaboration with the NCDHHS Office of Health Equity, the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch has focused on furthering environmental justice efforts through several key EJ initiatives:

1. Helping local health departments incorporate environmental justice (EJ) into Community Health Assessments. DHHS has garnered interest from more than 10 local health departments to participate in this initiative. Alamance County and Durham County are leading the way.
    
2. Sharing environmental health and climate data over space and time with the public. This central hub is called the NC Environmental Health Data Dashboard (EHDD) and it shows different content areas, such as air pollution and climate change. The dashboard also includes data from different years and shows trends over time.
    
3. Enhancing climate justice by sending heat health alerts, increasing work with farmworker populations, engaging with Tribes and Indigenous communities, and funding the Western NC Health Alliance to include climate justice in Community Health Assessments. An important aspect of environmental justice is addressing the disproportionate impacts of climate change, also known as climate justice. The NCDHHS Climate and Health team is working to understand heat-related illness among outdoor workers, including farmworkers, and to provide training on heat-related illness to farmworker outreach teams. This work also includes distributing heat alerts and prevention materials through community partners. 
    
4. Raising awareness of DHHS efforts to address environmental justice issues that are essential for health equity in NC. We presented state-level EJ initiatives alongside federal efforts shared by Dr. Jalonne White-Newson, Senior Director for Environmental Justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality at the Women’s Health Awareness events in April 2023 and 2024, the NIEHS Environmental Justice Action Forum in November 2023, and the Mellon Environmental and Epistemic Justice Summit at Wake Forest University in April 2024. Other events are ongoing.

Future Work

NCDHHS is currently helping to lead the Governor's Environmental Justice Advisory Council, with the first report presented to Governor Cooper in October 2024. We are also currently implementing the NCDHHS Environmental Justice Goals published in Fall 2024.  

We are also launching a new $1 million/3-year program titled Partnership to Address Private Well Contamination in Sampson County funded through a U.S. EPA Environmental Justice Government to Government grant. This program will address private well and septic needs in Sampson County with the Environmental Justice Community Action Network and other partners.