Environmental Inequality: Childhood Lead Poisoning as an Inadvertent Consequence of the Refugee Resettlement Process

Abstract

Communities are important health determinants for resettled refugees. The risk for lead poisoningamong African refugee children who resettle in the United States remains elevated, despite the gradual decrease in childhood lead poisoning in this country. We argue that the refugee resettlement process is a restricted system with a limited infrastructure that inadvertently contributes to the disproportionate burden of lead poisoning cases experienced by resettled African refugee children. We present childhood leadpoisoning in a resettled African refugee population as a case study of environmental inequality. We propose recommendations for practitioners to reduce and ultimately eliminate this unintended environmental inequality.

Department

Health Management and Policy

Publication Date

2012

Journal Title

Journal of Progressive Human Services

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1080/10428232.2012.715376

Document Type

Article

Link to Full Text

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