The Health Politics of Asthma
The Health Politics of Asthma
Environmental Justice and Collective Illness Experience
This chapter looks at the politics and embodied health movement strategies of environmental justice advocates working on asthma issues: Alternatives for Community and Environment, based in the Roxbury area of Boston, and West Harlem Environmental Action, based in New York City. It demonstrates how asthma is transformed from a disease affecting an individual to a politicized collective illness experience. This approach, together with support from public health and science allies, can lead to concrete changes in health policy, especially in terms of health tracking, academic and community collaboration, and stronger air-quality regulation. Meanwhile, community-based environmental justice organizations link asthma with the social determinants of their health, such as discrimination and social inequality.
Keywords: asthma, Alternatives for Community and Environment, West Harlem Environmental Action, collective illness, health policy, air-quality regulation, discrimination, social inequality
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