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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

An Ethnography Of Wash Infrastructures And Governance In Sulphur Springs, Florida, Mathews Jackon Wakhungu Jul 2020

An Ethnography Of Wash Infrastructures And Governance In Sulphur Springs, Florida, Mathews Jackon Wakhungu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes the forces that shape the perceptions and practices in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH) services in the community of Sulphur Springs, Tampa, Florida. It also explores how these forces, perceptions, and practices produce adverse experiences and inequalities in water, sewer, drainage, and laundry services. This ethnographic study combines participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, freelisting, oral history, and GIS to uncover the context, experiences, and perceptions about WaSH in Sulphur Springs. The study finds that the present conditions and perceptions about WaSH are embedded into the historical contexts—especially racial segregation, the construction of the interstate, and multiple economic downturns …


Fields Brook Superfund Site: Race, Class, And Environmental Justice In A Blasted Landscape, Richard C. Bargielski Mar 2020

Fields Brook Superfund Site: Race, Class, And Environmental Justice In A Blasted Landscape, Richard C. Bargielski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1980, the United States Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). This federal law provided the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the legal tools necessary to pursue polluters who had improperly stored or disposed hazardous wastes. Since its passage, more than a thousand sites have been added to the National Priorities List (NPL), but only a fraction have been cleaned up. Proponents of neoliberalism argue that aggressive environmental policies such as CERCLA harm workers by making it impossible for businesses to operate profitably. This coincides with a drop of nearly 50% in the U.S. …


Understanding The Linkages Between Urban Transportation Design And Population Exposure To Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Application Of An Integrated Transportation And Air Pollution Modeling Framework To Tampa, Fl, Sashikanth Gurram Nov 2017

Understanding The Linkages Between Urban Transportation Design And Population Exposure To Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Application Of An Integrated Transportation And Air Pollution Modeling Framework To Tampa, Fl, Sashikanth Gurram

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rapid and unplanned urbanization has ushered in a variety of public health challenges, including exposure to traffic pollution and greater dependence on automobiles. Moreover, vulnerable population groups often bear the brunt of negative outcomes and are subject to disproportionate exposure and health effects. This makes it imperative for urban transportation engineers, land use planners, and public health professionals to work synergistically to understand both the relationship between urban design and population exposure to traffic pollution, and its social distribution. Researchers have started to pay close attention to this connection, mainly by conducting observational studies on the relationship between transportation, urban …


A Landscape Of Thermal Inequity: Social Vulnerability To Urban Heat In U.S. Cities, Bruce Coffyn Mitchell Jul 2017

A Landscape Of Thermal Inequity: Social Vulnerability To Urban Heat In U.S. Cities, Bruce Coffyn Mitchell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A combination of the urban heat island effect and a rising temperature baseline resulting from global climate change inequitably impacts socially vulnerable populations residing in urban areas. This dissertation examines distributional inequity of exposure to urban heat by socially disadvantaged groups and minorities in the context of climate justice. Using Cutter’s hazards-of-place model, variables indicative of social vulnerability and biophysical vulnerability are statistically tested for their associations. Biophysical vulnerability is conceptualized utilizing a urban heat risk index calculated from summer 2010 LANDSAT imagery to measure land surface temperature , structural density through the normalized difference built-up index, and vegetation abundance …


Assessing The Relationship Between Hotspots Of Lead And Hotspots Of Crime, Kimberly L. Barrett Jan 2013

Assessing The Relationship Between Hotspots Of Lead And Hotspots Of Crime, Kimberly L. Barrett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous medical and environmental toxicology studies have established a link between lead (Pb) exposure, crime, and delinquency. In human environments, lead pollution- like crime- is unequally distributed, creating lead hot spots. In spite of this, studies of crime hotspots have routinely focused on traditional sociological predictors of crime, leaving environmental predictors of crime like lead and other neurotoxins relatively unaddressed. This study attends to this gap in the literature by asking a very straightforward research question: Is there a relationship between hotspots of lead and hotspots of crime? Furthermore, what is the nature and extent of this relationship? Lastly, is …


Park Access And Distributional Inequities In Pinellas County, Florida, Kyle Ray Hirvela Jan 2011

Park Access And Distributional Inequities In Pinellas County, Florida, Kyle Ray Hirvela

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although environmental justice research has traditionally focused on environmental disamenities and health hazards, recent studies have begun to examine social inequities in the distribution of urban amenities such as street trees and parks that provide several direct and indirect health benefits to local residents. This thesis adds to this knowledge by evaluating distributional inequities in both distribution and access to parks in Pinellas County, the most densely populated and one of the most racially segregated counties in Florida. An important objective was to determine if neighborhoods with lower levels of park access are more likely to contain a significantly higher …