Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item EXPLORING ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE AND AIR POLLUTION-RELATED HEALTH EFFECTS IN PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND(2024) Ravichandran, Vivek; Wilson, Sacoby M; Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Polluting facilities have been historically sited in disadvantaged communities of color, known as environmental justice (EJ) communities, due to limited perceived community resistance and mobilization. There is a plethora of air quality disparity research but a gap persists in ascertaining the health inequities associated with community exposure to air pollutants, such as particulate matter (PM) and black carbon (BC), at the neighborhood resolution. To address this gap in EJ science, this dissertation has four specific aims: (1) Implement the community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework to expand and enhance the community-engaged infrastructure to ensure the success of Aims 2-4; (2) Identify spatiotemporal pollution patterns across the Route 50-Sheriff Road-Kenilworth Ave Quadrant; (3) Determine short-term health impacts associated with community exposure to PM and BC via a panel study involving pulse oximeters to correlate elevated PM and BC levels to blood oxygen saturation (SpO2 levels); and (4) Conduct semi-structured interviews and use NVivo to perform thematic analysis on barriers and motivating factors towards passing EJ legislation. My findings demonstrated that a more diverse and representative community advisory board (CAB) allowed us to successfully conduct research while maintaining trust within the community, and bringing in voices from various demographic groups, including different ethnicities, ages, income levels, and geographic locations. This led to a more comprehensive understanding of the community's concerns, priorities, and needs related to air quality. Additionally, my findings revealed that both PM and BC levels were elevated during morning rush periods. PM levels did not exceed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) annual standards, but did exceed the more protective World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Robert Gray Elementary School exhibited higher PM levels than the other Quadrant sites. Furthermore, BC levels at Fairmount Heights High School were above the threshold defined in the literature above which cognitive inhibition and poor respiratory outcomes have been observed, highlighting the effect of air pollution exposure on vulnerable life stages in the Quadrant. BC peaks were also observed 10-15x these unofficial health-based thresholds. Using a pulse oximetry panel study, we found previous and concurrent day lagged fine particulate matter (PM2.5) was weakly associated with reductions in SpO2. Using NVivo, we identified 18 parent codes and 27 subcategories from our semi-structured interviews with Maryland policymakers/agency staff. Key barriers were: (1) the lack of strategic EJ plans; (2) limited community engagement particularly from those living in communities impacted by environmental injustice; and (3) interagency and policymaker collaboration exacerbated by a clear partisan divide. These findings provide evidence of previous misclassified exposure assessments from sparse existing regulatory monitors, present strategies for overcoming EJ barriers in the state, and underscore the importance of collaboration, community engagement, and policy reform to address environmental disparities and promote environmental justice.Item Integrating Environmental Justice and Social-Ecological Resilience for Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Lessons from African American Communities on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay(2016) Hesed, Christine Danielle Miller; Paolisso, Michael; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research concerns the conceptual and empirical relationship between environmental justice and social-ecological resilience as it relates to climate change vulnerability and adaptation. Two primary questions guided this work. First, what is the level of resilience and adaptive capacity for social-ecological systems that are characterized by environmental injustice in the face of climate change? And second, what is the role of an environmental justice approach in developing adaptation policies that will promote social-ecological resilience? These questions were investigated in three African American communities that are particularly vulnerable to flooding from sea-level rise on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, I found that in all three communities, religious faith and the church, rootedness in the landscape, and race relations were highly salient to community experience. The degree to which these common aspects of the communities have imparted adaptive capacity has changed over time. Importantly, a given social-ecological factor does not have the same effect on vulnerability in all communities; however, in all communities political isolation decreases adaptive capacity and increases vulnerability. This political isolation is at least partly due to procedural injustice, which occurs for a number of interrelated reasons. This research further revealed that while all stakeholders (policymakers, environmentalists, and African American community members) generally agree that justice needs to be increased on the Eastern Shore, stakeholder groups disagree about what a justice approach to adaptation would look like. When brought together at a workshop, however, these stakeholders were able to identify numerous challenges and opportunities for increasing justice. Resilience was assessed by the presence of four resilience factors: living with uncertainty, nurturing diversity, combining different types of knowledge, and creating opportunities for self-organization. Overall, these communities seem to have low resilience; however, there is potential for resilience to increase. Finally, I argue that the use of resilience theory for environmental justice communities is limited by the great breadth and depth of knowledge required to evaluate the state of the social-ecological system, the complexities of simultaneously promoting resilience at both the regional and local scale, and the lack of attention to issues of justice.Item Health-Related Communication Behaviors of Environmental Action Gatekeepers: A Qualitative Study(2015) Pomerantz, Sarah; Aldoory, Linda; Public and Community Health; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore behaviors of community members regarding environmental health information. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with environmental action gatekeepers from Prince George’s County, Maryland and Wards 7 and 8 of the District of Columbia to identify health-related communication behaviors and how they make meaning of those behaviors. Participants engaged in a range of behaviors to acquire, manage, and transmit information related to local environmental health issues. Although different behavior patterns did not emerge among activists versus advocates, a number of factors including perceived community constraints and informational subjective norms were identified as potential influences on communication behaviors. These findings support existing theoretical models, and suggest future research on how communicative behaviors among environmental health and environmental justice advocates may differ from those working on traditional ecological environmental issues. Findings suggest future opportunities to improve environmental health information sufficiency in the region.