Our work has implications for environmental
justice by suggesting that exposure to physical
and chemical hazards is only one route
whereby neighborhoods affect the health of
racial minorities. Health promotion may
require policies and interventions aimed at
eliminating environmental toxicants, fostering
community resources, and reducing social
stressors. Reduction of the gap in health
between advantaged and disadvantaged groups,
however, may require interventions targeted at
eliminating the gap in advantages themselves.
We emphasize racial differences in exposure
to stress, rather than racial differences in
response to stress. The former conceptualization
emphasizes interventions on macro-level social
policy (e.g., housing policy), whereas the latter
perspective emphasizes interventions at the
micro level (e.g., psychological counseling or
pharmacological agents). Although micro-level
approaches are useful, one disadvantage is that
individual interventions require tremendous
resources in order to manifest outcomes at the
population level (and hence reduce group differences)
and, further, are less efficient because
interventions must be reapplied to each new
birth cohort. However, policy-level changes that
target socially produced stressors may prove a
promising way to improve the public’s health.