Abstract
While structural factors may drive health inequities, certain health-promoting attributes of one’s “place” known as salutogens may further moderate the cumulative impacts of exposures to socio-environmental stressors that behave as pathogens. Understanding the synergistic relationship between socio-environmental stressors and resilience factors is a critical component in reducing health inequities; however, the catalyst for this concept relies on community-engaged research approaches to ultimately strengthen resiliency and promote health. Furthermore, this concept has not been fully integrated into environmental justice and cumulative risk assessment screening tools designed to identify geospatial variability in environmental factors that may be associated with health inequities. As a result, we propose a hybrid resiliency-stressor conceptual framework to inform the development of environmental justice and cumulative risk assessment screening tools that can detect environmental inequities and opportunities for resilience in vulnerable populations. We explore the relationship between actual exposures to socio-environmental stressors, perceptions of stressors, and one’s physiological and psychological stress response to environmental stimuli, which collectively may perpetuate health inequities by increasing allostatic load and initiating disease onset. This comprehensive framework expands the scope of existing screening tools to inform action-based solutions that rely on community-engaged research efforts to increase resiliency and promote positive health outcomes.
Highlights
The environment is a multifaceted system as it relates to health, encompassing physical, chemical, and biological factors that are external to a person, but social and cultural aspects as well [1].Salutogenic and pathogenic factors representing “the creation or origins of health” and “creation or origins of disease” respectively may further characterize the environment [2,3]
Burdened populations of color and economically marginalized groups are vulnerable to epigenetic modifications since they often experience the greatest exposure to environmental hazards in their neighborhoods [7,8,9,10,11] and may lack health-promoting infrastructure or resiliency buffers that are necessary to offset negative exposures. Without these safeguards in place, communities of color and low-income groups overburdened by environmental justice (EJ) issues may be more likely to have higher mortality rates of stroke, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease when compared to their White and more affluent counterparts [12,13]
We explore various aspects of cumulative risk assessment (CRA) and resilience, their proclivity to be addressed in silos, and the limitations of neglecting their synergistic relationship when designing EJ and CRA screening tools
Summary
The environment is a multifaceted system as it relates to health, encompassing physical, chemical, and biological factors that are external to a person, but social and cultural aspects as well [1]. Salutogens are defined as components of an individual’s social, economic, physical, and emotional environment that may foster health and wellbeing while pathogens are attributes of one’s environment that may undermine health [2,3] The interaction of these factors in the environment has significant implications for environmental justice (EJ) and cumulative risk assessment (CRA) screening tools, since salutogens. Burdened populations of color and economically marginalized groups are vulnerable to epigenetic modifications since they often experience the greatest exposure to environmental hazards in their neighborhoods [7,8,9,10,11] and may lack health-promoting infrastructure or resiliency buffers that are necessary to offset negative exposures Without these safeguards in place, communities of color and low-income groups overburdened by EJ issues (i.e., heavily trafficked roadways, Toxic Release Inventory [TRI] facilities, crime) may be more likely to have higher mortality rates of stroke, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease when compared to their White and more affluent counterparts [12,13]. Our framework demonstrates how community-engaged research approaches and exposures to salutogens are the impetus to promoting community resilience and health equity
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
