Summary on the Charleston Area Pollution Prevention Partnership Environmental Justice Conference and Summit

Abstract

For the last six years, a community-university partnership between the Low Country Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC), the Charleston Community Research to Action Board (CCRAB), the University of South Carolina (USC), the University of Maryland-College Park (UMD), and other partners and stakeholders have worked to perform a baseline assessment of environmental pollution, exposure disparities, and health in underserved and economically distressed communities in the Charleston region before the Port of Charleston expands. In an effort to provide a showcase for current environmental health and justice efforts in the Charleston area and the state of South Carolina, while also providing a forum for discussions of solutions to mitigate and eliminate environmental health threats, the Charleston Area Prevention Partnership (CAPs) team hosted an “Environmental Health and Justice Conference and Community Summit” in September 2013. The goal of the conference was to educate conference participants about research on environmental public health issues related to social justice, increase collaborations between community groups, health professionals, and academicians, and provide a forum for dissemination of results about research in social justice, environmental justice, and environmental health. The conference included two workshops, keynote addresses by Omega Wilson and Representative Harold Mitchell, concurrent sessions, and roundtable discussions. The conference resulted in innovative and creative ideas for community-university partnerships, as well as ways in which community members can rally around environmental health concerns to raise funds and generate solutions to address environmental injustice and health disparities in Metropolitan Charleston and the state of South Carolina.