Challenge aims to uplift community-level solutions to address health inequities and environmental justice

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded 12 winners in the first phase of the $1 million Environmental Justice Community Innovator Challenge. HHS created this national competition to uplift community voices with innovative solutions addressing the adverse health impacts of environmental conditions within local, disproportionately impacted communities.

For years, studies have demonstrated that racial and ethnic minority, disadvantaged, vulnerable, low-income, marginalized, and Indigenous populations are disproportionately burdened by environmental and climate change-related hazards. These populations are more likely to be exposed than other groups to unhealthy land uses, poor air and water quality, dilapidated housing, lead exposure, and other environmental threats that drive health disparities.  The combination of environmental risks and social inequities creates a cumulative, disproportionate impact that hinders optimal health for these populations.  

Executive Order 14898 “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All,” builds on previous Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice In Minority Populations And Low-Income Populations,” signed by President Clinton in 1994, and President Biden’s Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” all of which direct HHS to make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by developing programs, policies, and activities to protect human health by addressing the disproportionately high and adverse environmental, climate-related, and other cumulative impacts on disadvantaged communities.

This challenge aims to develop community-driven strategies and application of data-driven tools to advance health equity and address environmental hazards, including those related to climate change, and the cumulative impacts of environmental and other stressors.

“This challenge has provided an opportunity for community and Tribal voices to share their own approaches in improving public health through nature programs, engaging youth, and so much more. We are eager to learn from these partners and how these projects will impact their communities.” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Rachel Levine.

In Phase 1 of the challenge, solvers designed innovative concepts and ideas that would enhance their community-driven efforts to mitigate environmental health disparities and advance environmental health equity within a specific population and developed an effective approach to support innovative concepts already being developed.

“It is critical to support the development of community-led approaches for addressing environmental and climate change hazards in racial and ethnic minority, tribal and other disadvantaged communities,” said Rear Admiral Felicia Collins, M.D., M.P.H., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health and HHS OMH Director. “I applaud the Phase 1 challenge winners for their commitment to addressing adverse health impacts of environmental conditions within their communities.”

“This Challenge is giving us the ability to hear from those with lived experiences and firsthand knowledge of local factors that drive disproportionate health impacts,” said Dr. Sharunda Buchanan, Ph.D., Interim Director of the HHS Office of Environmental Justice.

HHS is committed to supporting community-driven projects designed to address environmental justice and public health issues in areas adversely affected by environmental pollution and climate change hazards. The second and final phase of the challenge is currently open for submissions and will close on June 30, 2024. It focuses on small-scale testing or implementation of well-developed approaches for community-led efforts to mitigate health disparities and advance health equity.

Aim High – Keep Pressing – North Carolina  
Title: AIMHigh – Keep Pressing Park & Play Program
Program: The 12-week mobile Park & Play program will provide safe and structured play sessions to children aged 2 to 18 to promote physical activity, fitness, and healthy eating, build trust in the communities, and create opportunities for them to share other concerns and ideas for an improved environment for their families. Over a 12-week period, the Park & Play program will serve at least 450 youths across 15 different sites, and AIMHigh will offer a 12-week summer program in partnership with Vance County Housing Authority, the Salvation Army, and Back to Eden.

Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods – Illinois
Title: LAND: A Training and Intervention for Community Health Workers
Program: This proposal will design and launch TIERRA (Transforming Internal Experiences for Resilience and Restoration through Acceptance), an innovative, research-informed, nature-based training program for Community Health Workers to address health and environmental injustices in Lake County, Illinois.

Buy In Community Planning – California
Title: Climate Trauma: Coping Practices and Mutual Mental Health Support for Frontline Community Leaders
Program: This proposal engages an existing cohort of frontline climate-change leaders who will lead a project designed to map existing, but previously undocumented, informal mental health practices and resources, evaluate their effectiveness in building emotional health, and identify additional needs towards the design of an implementation project that deeply engages a wider geographic and cultural range of community leaders from historically overburdened areas.

Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ) – California 
Title: A Nature-Based, Trauma-Informed Peer Support Model for Promoting Community Safety and Improving Mental Health Outcomes with Systems-Impacted Youth
Program: The project will address gaps and barriers in accessing health-promoting nature immersion activities on the part of systems-impacted youth by utilizing experienced peer health educators (Violence Interrupters) from their communities.

Healthy Little Havana– Florida
Title: “Porque Amo Mi Barrio, Limpio Mi Barrio - A Transformative Street Sweeper Employment Program for a Healthier and Equitable Little Havana”
Program: HLH proposes the establishment of a street sweeper program to address environmental justice concerns and enhance the overall well-being of the historically underserved Little Havana community. This program aims to create a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable environment through community engagement, targeted environmental improvements, health equity initiatives, and educational outreach.

Hispanic Federation – North Carolina
Title: Reducing East NC Latine Health Disparities through Community-led Climate Resilience Strategies
Program: This proposal will work with Latine grassroots nonprofits, families, and farmworkers in rural East Carolina to create a research, education, and advocacy campaign including creating a geospatial database to understand the impact of climate disasters, ensuring that Latine nonprofit leaders and community members can articulate the impact of climate change in their everyday lives and improve local and state disaster emergency plans to include community needs, while addressing the social determinants of health related to climate disasters.

Markham Public Library – Illinois 
Title: The Markham Healthy Green Spaces Initiative
Program: This project combines the innovative nature-based solution of Miyawaki pocket forests with other green infrastructure installations desired by our community to address long standing inequities in greenspace, clean air, shade, walkability, and biodiversity. The initiative unites the efforts of local residents, the public library, and health and environment-focused non-profit organization Nordson Green Earth Foundation.

The National Center for Farmworker Health (NCFH) – Texas
Title: Building Community Power through Community Based Participatory Research to Address Environmental Health Inequities in Texas-Mexico Border Communities
Program: This proposal will conduct a Community Based Participatory Research project in partnership with communities living in the Texas-Mexico border region, including a large and growing community of Mesoamerican Indigenous farmworkers who work and reside in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. This project will continue developing community leaders, building their capacity and skills in research methods, increasing leadership capacity for farmworkers, and focusing on an environmental justice research objective and accompanying methods.

New York City H2O, Inc. – New York
Title: STEW Crew: Mobilizing Youth Leadership for Cleaner and Greener Streets
Program: This project aims to build a network of STEW Crew schools across New York City, uniting them in a shared effort to tackle litter and promote their city’s natural features. This network will be created through the open exchange of data, best practices, and success stories.

Quiet Communities, Inc. – Massachusetts
Title: Quiet Empowerment: A Toolkit to Empower Noise-Impacted Communities
Program: The Quiet Empowerment Toolkit will support diverse communities in addressing noise pollution. The Quiet Empowerment Toolkit will include: (i) evidence-based data and information on how noise impacts physical and mental health, (ii) methods and means to measure and report noise levels and associated impacts, (iii) tools to self-organize and advocate for solutions, and (iv) information on enforcement, policy, and legal opportunities.

Orange County Environmental Justice and Team – California
Title: Community-Led Bioremediation: Addressing the Soil-Lead Crisis and Environmental Injustice in Santa Ana, California
Program: To address the lead crisis in Santa Ana, this project will propose a long-term strategy for training community members in the science and practice of bioremediation. The vision is to create a self-sustaining, city-wide network of community leaders (called “soil practitioners”) who will be paid and trained in collecting soil samples, measuring soil-lead contamination, and conducting bioremediation using native plants and fungi.

West Harlem Environmental Action Inc. – New York
Title: Green Bus Shelters: A Community Visioning Project to Increase Climate and Community Resilience in East Harlem
Program: This project proposes the development of a Green Bus Shelter project to reduce health disparities associated with extreme heat, flooding, and toxic air pollution exposure in East Harlem. The project will consist of retrofitting MTA bus shelters with green roofs to reduce ambient temperatures, absorb stormwater runoff, and filter air pollutants.