Environmental Racism in Greater Boston

This web portal from the Harvard Chan-National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Center for Environmental Health was developed as a collaboration between the Community Engagement and Geospatial and Contextual Methods Cores at Harvard Chan. It offers a series of online resources focused on environmental racism in the greater Boston area, as well as efforts to promote environmental justice in the area. Environmental racism refers to racial discrimination in the development and enforcement of institutional rules, regulations, policies, and practices that target and disproportionately affect communities of color for undesirable land use and enforcement of environmental regulations. Environmental justice is the movement to end environmental racism. This series of interactive web resources is aimed at a broad audience and is told in four parts, but each page can stand alone or be read as a continuous story: segregation, neighborhoods, households, and personal care products. Part 4 on personal care products is also available in Spanish. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that place matters for health: COVID-19 mortality has been linked to neighborhood characteristics, including segregation, as more segregated areas experienced higher overall mortality and more significant racial/ethnic disparities in mortality. Each part of the series includes maps, interactive data and figures, written descriptions, historical and legal contexts, and related resources for community members. Specific subtopics include redlining, water and air pollution, green space and urban heat, mold, and place-based determinants. Users can also explore recommended further reading and listening materials provided in each part of the series.