A Scoping Review of Capacity-Building Efforts to Address Environmental Justice Concerns.

Environmental justice (EJ) efforts aimed at capacity building are essential to addressing environmental health disparities; however, limited attention has been given to describing these efforts. This study reports findings from a scoping review of community-academic partnerships and community-led efforts to address environmental inequities related to air, water, and land pollution in the United States. Literature published in peer-reviewed journals from January 1986 through March 2018 were included, and community capacity theory was applied as a framework for understanding the scope of capacity-building and community change strategies to address EJ concerns. Paired teams of independent analysts conducted a search for relevant articles ( = 8452 citations identified), filtered records for content abstraction and possible inclusion ( = 163) and characterized selected studies ( = 58). Most articles implemented activities that were aligned with community capacity dimensions of citizen participation (96.4%, = 53), community power (78%, = 45), leadership (78%, = 45), and networks (81%, = 47); few articles identified a direct policy change (22%, = 13), and many articles discussed the policy implications of findings for future work (62%, = 36). This review synthesizes three decades of efforts to reduce environmental inequities and identifies strategic approaches used for strengthening community capacity.