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Anonymous (not verified)
Lee argues that EJ practice has long stagnated over an inability to properly define the concept of disproportionate (environmental and public health) impacts, but that national conversations on system racism and the development of EJ mapping tools have improved his outlook on the potential for better application of the concept of disproportionate impact. Lee identifies mapping tools (e.g. CalEnviroScreen) as a pathway for empirically based and analytically rigorous articulation and analysis of disproportionate impacts that are linked to systemic racism. In describing the scope and nature of application of mapping tools, Baker highlights the concept of cumulative impacts (the concentration of multiple environmental, public health, and social stressors), the importance of public participation (e.g. Hoffman’s community science model), the role of redlining in creating disproportionate vulnerabilities, and the importance of integrating research into decision making processes. Baker ultimately argues that mapping tools offer a promising opportunity for integrating research into policy decision making as part of a second generation of EJ practice. Key areas that Lee identifies as important to the continued development of more effective EJ practice include: identifying good models for quantitative studies and analysis, assembling a spectrum of different integrative approaches (to fit different contexts), connecting EJ research to policy implications, and being attentive to historical contexts and processes that produce/reproduce structural inequities.

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tamar.rogoszinski

Schmid works to analyze the course of events that occured at Fukushima as well as outline what a nuclear emergency response group needs in order to be successful. She specifically addresses the knowledge and expertise that would be necessary. She also highlights the lack of international authority and the implications that holds. 

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tamar.rogoszinski

This study would be useful because it shows the prevalence of overdiagnosis. It shows that while the nuclear disaster did cause an increase in the observed thyroid cancers, this was well above the expected number of cases. While they did not present the dangerous implications of overdiagnosis, this is something that could be researched further. It can be considered a good thing that these cases were found through the Program put in place, but can also cause harm if unnecessary radiation was administered.

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tamar.rogoszinski
Annotation of

This film is meant to show the struggles of an ER waiting room from all sides. It shows the frustrations of patients waiting to be seen for hours, financial workers, social workers, and doctors struggling to see everyone in a timely manner. It also shows organizers tryign to sort everyone and move the patients around in ways that benefit all parties. Essentially, this documentary is highlighting the issues that exist in the ER because of lack of staff, beds, and overall means to take care of the large influx of patients. 

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tamar.rogoszinski
  1. "“In the globalized world of the 21st century,” it argued, simply stopping disease at national borders is not adequate. Nor is it sufficient to respond to diseases after they have become established in a population. Rather, it is necessary to prepare for unknown outbreaks in advance"
  2. “World health is indivisible, [and] we cannot satisfy our most parochial needs without attending to the health conditions of all the globe.”
  3. "This tension relates to a difference in aims but also in forms of intervention: emergency response is acute, short-term, focused on alleviating what is conceived as a temporally circumscribed event; whereas “social” interventions—such as those associated with development policy—focus on transforming political-economic structures over the long term. Thus, in global health initiatives we find a contrast between possible modalities of intervention that parallels the one already described in U.S.–based biosecurity efforts: between acute emergency measures on the one hand and long-term approaches to health and welfare on the other."
  4. "Although there is a great sense of urgency to address contemporary biosecurity problems— and while impressive resources have been mobilized to do so — there is no consensus about how to conceptualize these threats, nor about what the most appropriate measures are to deal with them."

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tamar.rogoszinski

The authors discuss that there is little information regarding this topic because there is a lack of research. This is pointed out by the fact that they could only find 38 articles that related to this topic. They also point out that there is an urgency for an analysis regarding the impact of this violence on the facilities, organizations, and on the populations that benefitted from the humanitarian presence.