Novel Transdisciplinary Methods to Address Environmental Justice in Maternal and Child Health
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 134
Special Issue Editors
2. Centre for Quantitative Medicine, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore
3. Institute for Human Development and Potential (IHDP), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore 117609, Singapore
Interests: epidemiology; early child health and development; social and biological mechanisms; environmental health; causal inference; quantitative methods
2. Department of Chicano/Latino Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
Interests: structural racism and health; health of Latiné communities, immigrant communities, low-income communities; community-based participatory research
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
It is well documented that historical and on-going marginalization and disenfranchisement of communities and populations results in disproportionate exposure and susceptibility to environmental harms, from toxic contaminants to infectious agents to climate change-related extreme weather events and their sequalae (unsafe living conditions/loss of housing, electricity, heating/cooling, clean water, transportation, employment, etc.). These injustices are felt particularly acutely among child-bearing individuals, infants, and children living in such communities.
However, child environmental health research is commonly conducted in settings and with data and methods that are poorly suited to understanding how to intervene to reduce inequities in those communities. Typically, broad population surveys and routine environmental monitoring (e.g., fixed sensors and satellites) are used to study adult, non-institutionalized individuals. Moreover, such efforts generally lack granularity, invariably resulting in simplistic deficit-based foci (risk factors and lagging health indicators) rather than highlighting resources, strengths, or opportunities that may be unique to context. Even when data are collected from children and within marginalized communities, researchers typically apply methods and analytic approaches that may not respect or integrate relevant measures, mechanisms, and intersectionality that vary across cultures and contexts.
Alternatively, an environmental justice approach to maternal and child health center communities illuminates historic and contemporary systems of oppression, is inclusive of culturally relevant, ancestral family, and social systems, takes a strengths-based approach, and aims towards justice-oriented interventions, policies, and practices.
To this end, we are pleased to invite you to submit a manuscript that represents one or more of the following:
- New empirical research, literature reviews (systematic, scoping, or narrative), qualitative or quantitative method development, and/or conceptual/theory building.
- Pays close attention to intentional integration of qualitative and quantitative methods to address environmental injustice in maternal and child health, particularly where quantitative data are underutilized or unavailable.
- Develops or applies novel methods that respect intersectionality and complexity relevant to contexts, including AI/ML-based approaches if appropriate.
- Applies community-focused methods that deliberately focus on a uniquely or local context and how approaches, if not exact findings, can be generalized to other contexts.
- Considers environmental health and maternal and child health research and practice at the interface with clinical, government, and community organizations.
- Reflects co-authorship/collaboration with community organizations, public agencies, or other maternal and child health-adjacent entities.
This Special Issue aims to highlight novel, transdisciplinary, justice-oriented approaches to change how maternal and child environmental health inequities are studied and addressed through integration of cutting-edge quantitative and qualitative methods.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Jonathan Yinhao Huang
Dr. Alana M. W. LeBrón
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- environmental justice
- maternal and child health
- health inequities
- community-oriented
- trans-disciplinary
- novel data collection methods
- mixed methods
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