The event was jointly convened by the Environment, Health and Development Network and the Global Environmental Justice research group at the University of East Anglia, with support from the Disaster and Development Centre at Northumbria University and the Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre at Sussex University.

The seminar took a global perspective, and focussed strongly on addressing the continuing need for research and debate on environment, health and wellbeing issues in developing countries, where the effects of environmental injustice tend to be thrown into sharpest relief. However, the underlying processes of environmental injustice are truly global (and increasingly globalized) and discussions also examined how justice concepts can frame environment and wellbeing concerns in the UK and other higher-income countries.

Seminar outputs available to download (pdfs):

Full report of the seminar proceedings 

Seminar preamble

Abstracts of presentations


Perspective pieces
Following the seminar, a set of perspective pieces were provided by seminar participants on the links between environmental justice, health and well being:

Environmental Justice, Health Inequalities and Urban Injustice: Critical Perspectives from Research in an Eastern Mediterranean City
Balsam Ahmad (Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University)
Illustrates the need for critical, cross-disciplinary reflection by environmental justice researchers on how exposures influence health/wellbeing and on the methods used to research these linkages.

Environmental Justice, Disasters and Vulnerabilities: A Gender Perspective
Ugo Guarnacci (Department of Economics, University of Reading)
Emphasizes the utility of a justice framework in analyzing how the impact of disasters, and the response to them, both tend to reproduce and reinforce gender inequities.

Environmental Justice, Health and Well-being: Reflections on the Chinese Experience
Jennifer Holdaway (Social Science Research Council)
Argues that a narrowly-conceived approach to environmental justice research would be limited in its ability to capture the full complexity of environment, health and development interactions in China.

Environmental Justice, Health and Wellbeing – Perspective on Justice for the Roma in Access to Infrastructure Services in the Post-socialist City
Rosalina Babourkova (Development Planning Unit, UCL)
Argues that environmental justice researchers could open up new spaces for engagement with the public in enhancing recognition of marginalized groups and the health/wellbeing injustices they face.