HEAL 222 Podcast Project - Rhea, Nicole, Rachel

Environmental health focuses on how the environment affects human health, such as air and water quality. Poor environmental health is correlated with chronic diseases like cancer and respiratory illnesses. It can also affect us in ways we may not think of, like heat exhaustion due to global warming. Environmental health is a public health issue because decisions made at the government and community level can impact the health of populations. Historic redlining in Houston has led to environmental health injustice, with neighborhoods of people of color having higher levels of toxins and lower life expectancies. Organizations like Citizens Environmental Coalition and Air Alliance Houston are working to address these issues. However, there are still gaps in intervention in the community. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Healing Houston, where we discuss various public health issues affecting communities. Our names are Rhea, Nicole, and Rachel, and we're so excited to have you join us today. In today's episode, we will be deep diving into environmental health among people of color and urban environments, specifically Houston, and we will have a very special guest speaker, Houston's very own Mrs. Gonzalez, who will be discussing how historic redlining in Houston is correlated with poor environmental health among people of color. Can't wait. Let's dive on in. Before we bring in our speaker, Ms. Gonzalez, I'm curious to know what we mean by environmental health. Are we talking about how healthy the environment is, or how people's health is affected by the environment? Well, you're definitely headed in the right direction there. Environmental health focuses on how the environment affects human health. From a public health lens, communities need to look into the quality of our air, food, water, and even the places we live in to see how environmental conditions are affecting our health. Poor environmental health is correlated with numerous non-communicable chronic diseases such as cancer and respiratory illnesses. This also includes chronic issues like asthma attacks due to the air pollutions that infiltrate the lungs or lead contamination in the water. Also, the environment can affect our health in ways that we may not think of, such as acute symptoms like heat exhaustion due to global warming, or prevalence of bike lanes or walkable communities in our geographical location that can contribute to our levels of physical activity. And we know that low levels of physical activity can lead to increased cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and ultimately heart disease. Wow, that is so interesting. So that means that where we live and the environment around us can determine our health outcomes even more than our genetics can. But how is this a public health issue? Well, I mainly talked about how environmental health can affect individual health by causing all sorts of both acute and chronic non-communicable diseases. But environmental health is also a major public health issue because it is the characteristics of communities, small or large, which are influenced by larger players like the government, policy, and research that ultimately affect the health of populations. So expanding beyond the individual level, at the interpersonal level, where your family lives can determine where you live. At the local level, your community decisions to put in bike lanes can impact your health. And at the federal level, the government's decisions to tackle food deserts and where to place factories can all impact the health of a lot of people. Thanks for clarifying that. Now let's bring on Ms. Gonzalez to hear more about the issue. Hello, Ms. Gonzalez. Thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for having me. So, Ms. Gonzalez, how prevalent would you say environmental health as a public issue is in the U.S.? Well, environmental health is important everywhere, whether it's on a local, national, or global level. Considering it affects more than 12 million people in the world, it can be the underlying cause for many chronic conditions that plague people today. And now, zooming into Houston specifically, how relevant is the issue of environmental health here? Also, what is an example of an environmental health issue in the city today? Well, Rhea, I would say that environmental health is especially and increasingly relevant in Houston. For example, in terms of the social vulnerability index, we can see that Houston's neighborhoods, specifically Sunnyside, 3rd and 5th Ward, have vulnerability levels of .84 or higher. In comparison, neighborhoods that are better protected for its citizens have levels of .24 or lower. This emphasizes the negative effects that occur in neighborhoods that aren't as well protected as places west of the city. IMPACT's Greater 5th Ward Assessment of 2020 is a study that was conducted after the Union Pacific Railroad site in Houston's 5th Ward, which showed chemical contamination of the soil, and the study found that 43% of households serving nearby the site reported some sort of cancer diagnosis, the majority of whom were low-income minorities. Compared to Houston's average cancer diagnosis, it's a statistic of 6.1%. So I think this shows not just that Houston's poor environmental health is directly affecting the health of Houston residents, but also that Houston has major environmental health injustice, likely a direct effect of Houston's historic redlining. Yes, I've definitely heard about this before. For those who don't know, in 1930, the Homeowner Loan Corporation created maps of cities across America, dividing neighborhoods based on quote-unquote risk level, or the area's potentially declining home value. However, low-income neighborhoods with predominantly black and Hispanic populations were given a red D rating, while high-income, predominantly white neighborhoods were given a green A rating. Local governments then used these HOLC maps to determine where to place factories, plants, and other environmentally harmful buildings closer to the homes that had lower ratings. Yes, I completely agree. Well, thank you, Ms. Gonzalez, for your valuable insight. Next, we will be discussing the specific communities in Houston, specifically those that are affected by environmental health and injustice. Rachel, what are the demographics of these communities? Well, we can see after looking at the intersection between U.S. Census data and EPA research that the people most affected by environmental health issues in the city of Houston are people of color and those of low socioeconomic status. This is because, as stated prior, redlining impacted people of color the most by preventing them from gaining value via their home ownership. This means that colored, particularly black and Hispanic communities, got more dangerous, less preferable areas to live in, which means near factories and contaminated slash chemical dump sites. Wow, do you think you can provide us with a real-life example? For sure. In the Harrisburg and Manchester neighborhoods, there are 21 chemical and toxic waste facilities within three miles of this neighborhood. And 98% of the population there are Hispanic and black. And this is not just for this single neighborhood. Locations such as Greater 5th Ward, Greater 3rd Ward, Independence Heights, Sunnyside, etc. are all Hispanic or black-dominated areas, which see much larger amounts of toxins released into the air in comparison to their predominantly white counterparts. Also, environmental pollutants are even more insidious because it impacts the most vulnerable, children and the elderly. Exposure to pollutants can cause asthma, childhood cancers, and developmental problems. This is terrible because the chemical levels outside nearly half of the schools and child care centers were above the citywide average. Additionally, the life expectancy declined for people who lived in the neighborhoods, such as 5th Ward, by a decade or more. So, to summarize, the health issue of redlining is a problem in the community of Houston because living in neighborhoods that aren't properly taken care of causes the people living in them to be more vulnerable. These people, who are mainly people of color, are more likely to get cancer, chronic diseases, and have lower life expectancies. This is why it's so important that we address these issues legally in order to protect the people. Yep. Wow, thank you for sharing. Next, we will take a quick break for our sponsors, our fantastic five, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the Complete Communities Initiative, the Texas Health and Environmental Alliance, Air Alliance Houston, and Citizens Environmental Coalition. But we will be specifically learning about two, the Complete Communities Initiative and Air Alliance Houston. Let's take a listen. First up, I will be discussing the Citizens Environmental Coalition, CEC. The CEC is a grassroots nonprofit organization working to address environmental issues with various programs that increase awareness about how environmental health affects public health and how communities must strive to be equitable and environmentally sustainable. Their activities include educational and empowermental initiatives, such as the Greater Houston Environmental Summit, which is one of the organization's primary preventions against environmental health injustice. And the CEC also holds partnerships with Bryce University's Center for Environmental Studies to encourage research in vulnerable communities impacted by Houston's poor environmental health. This secondary prevention screens soil and water to see if communities are at risk of contaminants. At the tertiary level, the CEC empowers its members to seek treatment for any diseases resulting from poor environmental health. Sounds awesome. Now, let's hear about our second sponsor. So, our second spotlighted sponsor is the AAH, Air Alliance Houston. This is a nonprofit organization that has been operating in Houston in a multitude of forms since the late 1980s. The organization's aims are to reduce the public health impacts from air pollution through research, education, and advocacy. And their vision is a future where there are healthy communities with access to clean air and environments every day. Their campaigns in the past have been to reduce pollutants via building support for ordinances, such as anti-idling, and creating research to action projects on air quality, as well as meeting the communities that they support via events. Amazing. Thank you, Citizens Environmental Coalition and Air Alliance Houston, for being the sponsors of today's episode. Despite these amazing efforts, I can't help thinking that there are still some gaps in intervention in the community. Some gaps that are seen are socioeconomic racism, specifically in Houston, as it is one of the most segregated cities in the United States. We need more organizations targeting low-income minority communities, which is a demographic most affected by environmental injustice. Additionally, more organizations need to be providing financial assistance for health screenings for Houston residents of lower socioeconomic status. Definitely. And I think some potential reasons for gaps in intervention are largely political. There is tension between the oil companies that fuel Houston's economy, politicians, and affected residents. These oil and chemical processing companies additionally provide jobs for numerous Houstonians and are difficult to minimize. The gaps overall stem from economic reasons and the lack of money implemented into neighborhoods with people of color and of low socioeconomic status. A lot of the environmental issues in bedlining mostly stem from the Ship Canal in Houston and chemical refining. This basically means that when it floods, the water is contaminated by the chemicals, which affects neighborhoods near the canal, which is why we can see a lot of them ended up having diseases such as cancer. Unfortunately, there is also a history of socioeconomic racism that affects African Americans and Hispanics and Latinos. These groups of minorities often face large unemployment rates and are more likely to live in poverty, therefore being affected by redlining. Rachel, what are the current interventions in place and how effective do you think that they are? Well, as we saw from our highlighted sponsors, there are quite a few organizations that are working to lower the impact that environmental pollution has on people's health. For the primary interventions, there are legislations put into place. These include anti-discrimination laws that try to undo the effects of redlining in real estate. There are also educational programs for community awareness, which allow these community members to better advocate for their own health. And for the secondary interventions, there are organizations that test the water, as well as hospitals providing screenings for cancers and other chronic and acute illnesses. For the tertiary interventions, hospitals provide treatment for the aforementioned illnesses. Unfortunately, even though there are a wealth of organizations and interventions, it seems that many of them are focused on primary interventions, which are not as effective if they can't be reinforced well. Also, the cost of treatment, especially for chronic illnesses, can put undue stress on the already impoverished communities. What do you think about it? These agencies should provide more funding allocated to provide screening for those at risk of redlining in the city of Houston. They will make the cost more affordable and, therefore, allow those of low socioeconomic status to afford annual checkups, as well as treatments to further prevent health issues from occurring, like leukemia and kidney disease. I personally think Houston as a whole, along with other states, need to rethink the way the physical environment, like our rivers, canals, and oceans, impact the public health. Ultimately, the programs within the city should allocate their resources to improving these issues. Well, we have a lot of work to do in our city, as I'm sure you guys agree. Rhea and Rachel, what do you think about the current situation affecting millions of our Houstonians in some of the least protected neighborhoods? I completely agree with you, Nicole, and I think those interventions you mentioned earlier could create some real change. But to answer your question, I personally think that Houston needs to straighten out some of its political tensions that are stopping the city's environmental health from really being improved. We need to find some way to potentially shift our economy away from pollutants and towards renewable resources and environments that are more compatible with human health, such as adding in bike lanes or making our communities more walkable. Doing this will take a lot of effort and a lot of community advocacy that we should all get on board with. I definitely agree with you, Rhea. Undoubtedly, there's a lot of things that need to change for the environmental injustices that are occurring to be minimized, let alone stopped. I personally think that since Houston as a city is so reliant on fossil fuels, it would be fantastical to think that we can stop the use of fossil fuels altogether. But I think that more legislation to regulate the disposal of waste from these facilities to not leak into the surrounding residential environments are essential. You're exactly right. If anyone out there in the audience has been inspired by the messages we've heard today, I know I have. And if anyone wants to address environmental injustice and health in their communities, I would definitely take up Rachel and Nicole's suggestions. Also, feel free to look into volunteering or working for some of the fantastic sponsors of today's episode who are doing their part to address environmental health in Houston. Absolutely. I think I might do some of those myself right now. I heard a group was looking for volunteers to attend an Earth Day and spread the word about redlining on social media. Feel free to reach out and check it out. As always, thank you so much to our lovely audience for tuning in to Healing Houston, brought to you by Rice University's Health Science Department. And join us for our next episode where we'll be discussing alcohol consumption in Rice students. ♪