Environmental Health Section

Program on Health Equity and Sustainability

Glossary of Working Terms

Note: We recognize there are several definitions and interpretations to the terms presented herein. The definitions presented are intended to provide a common ground for communication exchange between our programs and the communities and sectors we collaborate with or are working towards collaborating with. We expect these terms and their definitions will change or evolve over time

terms and definitions

A commonly accepted standard for affordability is that a household’s monthly housing costs should not exceed 30 percent of its monthly net household income. Housing is usually considered "affordable" if it would meet this 30 percent standard for families considered "low-income," meaning they earn below 80 percent of the area median income (AMI).

Source: Policy Link

The basic goal of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Res. Code §21000 et seq.) is to develop and maintain a high-quality environment now and in the future, while the specific goals of CEQA are for California's public agencies to:

1. Identify the significant environmental effects of their actions; and, either
2. Avoid those significant environmental effects, where feasible; or
3. Mitigate those significant environmental effects, where feasible.

CEQA applies to "projects" proposed to be undertaken or requiring approval by State and local government agencies.

"Projects" are activities which have the potential to have a physical impact on the environment and may include the enactment of zoning ordinances, the issuance of conditional use permits and the approval of tentative subdivision maps.

Source: California Environmental Quality Act

Community Impact Assessment, or CIA, is an iterative process of understanding potential impacts of proposed transportation activities on affected communities and their sub-populations throughout transportation decision-making. Assessments should focus on issues that affect the community and the quality of life of its people. Issues of usual concern include safety; mobility/access; community cohesion; displacement of people, businesses, and farms; adverse employment effects; tax and property value losses; noise; access to public facilities and services; aesthetic values; destruction or disruption of man-made and natural resources; disruption of desirable community growth; nondiscrimination, and other community issues. As mitigation is proposed, anticipated impacts of that mitigation on the community and its sub-populations must also be considered. Transportation planners must consider both the benefits and burdens of their decisions. Detailed documentation of activities, data, findings, decisions, and commitments are critical for continuity.

Source: Community Impact Assessment

The social determinants of health are societal conditions that affect health and can potentially be altered by social and health policies and programs. Three broad categories of social determinants are social institutions - including cultural and religious institutions, economic systems, and political structures; surroundings - including neighborhoods, workplaces, towns, cities, and built environments; and social relationships - including position in social hierarchy, differential treatment of social groups, and social networks

Source: Social Environment and Health

"… internally displaced persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border."

Source:

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement

International network on displacement and resettlemnent

 

Day laborers are individuals who generally work for different employers and get paid on a daily basis. They may congregate on street corners and wait for employers to offer them work.

Little is actually known about these workers or their working conditions

Although limited, existing information on the nature and size of the day laborer workforce suggests that these workers may be prone to workplace abuses and are probably undercounted. While individual sources may be limited in scope, taken together, they indicate that day laborers are generally young Hispanic men with limited educational skills and significant language barriers, with some portion being undocumented. These characteristics make workers vulnerable to various types of workplace dangers and abuses

soruce: US General Accounting Office: GAO-02-925 Protections for Day Laborers. September, 2002

Equity

Equity in health is the absence of systematic disparities in health (or in the major social determinants of health) between groups with different levels of underlying social advantage/disadvantage-that is, wealth, power, or prestige. Equity is an ethical principle; it also is consonant with and closely related to human rights principles. The proposed definition of equity supports operationalisation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health as indicated by the health status of the most socially advantaged group. [See also Inequity]

soruce: Braveman P., Gruskin S. Defining equity in health. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2003;57:254-258

Environmental Impact Review/Assessments (IER)

The IER is a tool used during CEQA-related processes. The IER’s primary purpose is to inform decision makers and the public of possible significant environmental effects of a proposal, less damaging alternatives and possible ways to reduce or avoid the potential damage.

source:Citizen’s Guide to the General Plan. Planning and Conservation League Foundation.

Food Security

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life

source: Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations

Health

Health is the product of multiple levels of influence. These include genetic and biologic processes, individual behaviors, and the context within which people live - the social environment. A multi-level approach to community health requires us to take into consideration, and act upon, social determinants. 

source: Social Environment and Health

Health Impact Assessment (hia)

Health impact assessment is a combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, program or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of a population, and the distribution of those effects within the population

source: World Health Organization

Inequity

For the purposes of measurement and operationalisation, equity in health is the absence of systematic disparities in health (or in the major social determinants of health) between groups with different levels of underlying social advantage/disadvantage—that is, wealth, power, or prestige. Inequities in health systematically put groups of people who are already socially disadvantaged (for example, by virtue of being poor, female, and/or members of a disenfranchised racial, ethnic, or religious group) at further disadvantage with respect to their health; health is essential to wellbeing and to overcoming other effects of social disadvantage. Equity is an ethical principle; it also is consonant with and closely related to human rights principles. The proposed definition of equity supports operationalisation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health as indicated by the health status of the most socially advantaged group. Assessing health equity requires comparing health and its social determinants between more and less advantaged social groups. These comparisons are essential to assess whether national and international policies are leading toward or away from greater social justice in health.

source:

Braveman P., Gruskin S. Defining equity in health. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2003;57:254-258

Braveman, Starfield, Geiger. World Health Report 2000: how it removes equity from the agenda for public health monitoring and policy. BMJ Sept 22, 2001;323:678-81

participatory action research (PAR)

Community-based participatory research (in health) is a collaborative approach to research that equitably involves all partners in the research process and recognizes the unique strengths that each brings. CBPR begins with a research topic of importance to the community with the aim of combining knowledge and action for social change to improve community (health)

source: Minkler, Meredith and Nina Wallerstein. 2003. Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc

Poverty

Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not being able to go to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom. As poverty has many dimensions, it has to be looked at through a variety of indicators -- levels of income and consumption, social indicators, and now increasingly indicators of vulnerability to risks and of socio/political access.

source: PovertyNet

Racism

Institutionalized racism

Is defined as differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society by race. Institutionalized racism is normative, sometimes legalized, and often manifests as inherited disadvantage. It is structural, having been codified in our institutions of custom, practice, and law, so there need not be an identifiable perpetrator. Indeed, institutionalized racism is often evident as inaction in the face of need.

source: Jones CP. Levels of Racism: A Theoretic Framework and a Gardener’s Tale. Am J Public Health. 2000;90: 1212–1215)

Personally mediated racism

Is defined as prejudice and discrimination, where prejudice means differential assumptions about the abilities, motives, and intentions of others according to their race.

source:Ibid

Internalized racism

Is defined as acceptance by members of the stigmatized races of negative messages about their own abilities and intrinsic worth. It is characterized by their not believing in others who look like them, and not believing in themselves. It involves accepting limitations to one’s own full humanity, including one’s spectrum of dreams, one’s right to self determination, and one’s range of allowable self-expression.
 

source: Ibid

Smart Growth

Environmentally-sensitive land development with the goals of minimizing dependence on auto transportation, reducing air pollution, and making infrastructure investments more efficient.

Smart growth is development that serves the economy, the community, and the environment. It changes the terms of the development debate away from the traditional growth/no growth question to "how and where should new development be accommodated."

Smart Growth answers these questions by simultaneously achieving:

1. Healthy communities -- that provide families with a clean environment. Smart growth balances development and environmental protection -- accommodating growth while preserving open space and critical habitat, reusing land, and protecting water supplies and air quality.
2. Economic development and jobs -- that create business opportunities and improve local tax base; that provide neighborhood services and amenities; and that create economically competitive communities.
3. Strong neighborhoods -- which provide a range of housing options giving people the opportunity to choose housing that best suits them. It maintains and enhances the value of existing neighborhoods and creates a sense of community.
4. Transportation choices -- that give people the option to walk, ride a bike, take transit, or drive.

source:Smart Growth-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Social Determinants of Health

The social determinants of health are societal conditions that affect health and can potentially be altered by social and health policies and programs. Three broad categories of social determinants are social institutions - including cultural and religious institutions, economic systems, and political structures; surroundings - including neighborhoods, workplaces, towns, cities, and built environments; and social relationships - including position in social hierarchy, differential treatment of social groups, and social networks.

source: Social Environment and Health

Social Exclusion

Like poverty, social exclusion is not attributed to any single cause. Persistently low incomes, lack of job opportunities, place of residence or neighborhood, lack of access to education, to health care, and to other public services combine to trap particular groups in a situation of severe disadvantage.

 source: Columbia University: The Clearinghouse on International Developments in Child, Youth & Family Policies. Issue Brief Spring 2003

Social Impact Assessment

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is a method of analyzing what impact a government action may have on the social aspects of the environment. These aspects include (but are not limited to):

• The ways people cope with life through their economy, social systems, and cultural values.
• The ways people use the natural environment, for subsistence, recreation, spiritual activities, cultural activities, and so forth.
• The ways people use the built environment, for shelter, making livelihoods, industry, worship, recreation, gathering together, etc.
• The ways communities are organized, and held together by their social and cultural institutions and beliefs.
• Ways of life that communities value as expressions of their identity.
• Art, music, dance, language arts, crafts, and other expressive aspects of culture.
• A group's values and beliefs about appropriate ways to live, family and extra-family relationships, status relationships, means of expression, and other expressions of community.
• The esthetic and cultural character of a community or neighborhood-its ambience.

source: National Environmental Policy Act

Sustainable Communities

Sustainable communities are safe, livable, and healthy.

source: Sustainable Communities Network