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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Janine M. Legg, MBA, Environmental Justice Consultants, P.O. Box 624, Phoenixville, PA 19460, 6102030352, leggjm@earthlink.net

A study was performed, using the model, Building Healthy Communities in Environmental Justice Areas, (BHCEJA) to determine which county communities in Pennsylvania, qualified: as environmental justice areas; or were potential counties of concern; and/or were at higher risk for environmental burden and health risk, (based upon EPA RSEI scores (ver. 2.1.2), economics, demographics and health indicators). The health indicators: mortality- (all causes of death); infant mortality; cancer incidence; Low infant birth weight (LBW); and lead poisonings were tabulated for the twenty county communities that had the top risk related scores totaling 80 percent. The twenty counties in Pennsylvania, (from 1988-2002), that scored the top 80 percent risk-related scores and released the top scoring OSHA carcinogens and TRI chemicals, (for any year between 1988-2002) included: Allegheny, Beaver. Berks, Bucks, Cambria, Chester, Delaware, Erie, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lehigh, Mercer, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Schuylkill, Venango, Washington, Westmoreland and York Counties. Of the twenty counties initially identified, ten counties were identified that had high risk from environmental burden (based on risk-related scores from 1988-2002), and were also above the state percentage of those that live in poverty. Those ten counties that qualified for both conditions, (of risk and poverty) for any year (1988-2002) are: Allegheny, Beaver, Cambria, Erie, Lackawanna, Mercer, Philadelphia, Schuylkill, Venango, and Washington Counties. The ten counties identified also demonstrated disease significantly above the state average on several levels. Philadelphia County met all the criteria of the BHCEJA model for an environmental justice area.

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