ABSTRACT
Many environmental health inequalities also represent inequities in that they are unfair, unjust and avoidable. This chapter examines the concept and theoretical underpinnings of environmental health inequity, beginning with its roots in the environmental-justice and civil-rights movements and continuing to its contribution to the discipline of health geography today, while illustrating the multiplicity, scope and scale of the phenomena through an examination of international examples. In examining place-specific health disparities, health geographers have long focused on the contribution of environmental determinants of health within the context of broad socioeconomic, health-care and individual factors. The chapter presents a series of illustrative examples of environmental health inequity that span global to local scales in order to elucidate the nature, diversity and ubiquity of the problem. It examines international trade in toxic electronic waste (e-waste) and large-scale environmental disasters, namely the Aral Sea disaster, and urban air pollution as well as environmental exposures in Indigenous communities.
