About Us

Mission

The Environmental Justice Action Research Clinic aims to improve environmental health by engaging in collaborative action-oriented research with impacted communities and educating future community-engaged scholars and practitioners.  

Vision

The EJ Clinic works to enhance the health, quality of life and self-determination within communities that have been historically marginalized and overburdened by environmental hazards in North Carolina. We seek to amplify community voice and participation in local and state environmental decision making.  

Values

Participatory: The people and communities that are the subjects of research should lead the research and be meaningfully engaged at all stages, including the right not to participate 

Accountable: Communities and researchers hold themselves and each other accountable to their commitments, including to participatory praxis 

Transparent: The rules for decision-making are clear, collective, agreed in advance, and followed 

Accessible:  Ensure that communities and researchers can equitably engage in all activities by maintaining culturally sensitive and accessible materials and communication practices.

Transformative: Research is designed and conducted with the goal of creating social change that results in marginalized groups gaining greater control and self-determination over their lives and environments 

Reflexive: Researchers and communities engage in self-reflection to examine their own attitudes and biases and commit to rigorously seeking out and addressing their prejudices and to refrain from acting on them