SIPA: School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University

Faculty Publications

Jason Corburn (DIPA & Urban Planning) has just published, Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice, with The MIT Press. His book explores the role of local knowledge in science policy making, particularly when issues of risk and fairness collide with claims of racial injustice and disease disparities. Built around four case studies of community-based environmental health conflicts in a poor, people of color neighborhood in New York City, Corburn reveals how the local experiences of citizens combines with the expertise of professional scientists to form a new, co-produced, policy-relevant Street Science. Street Science identifies hazards and highlights research questions that professionals may ignore, provides hard-to-gather exposure data, involves difficult-to-reach populations, and expands possibilities for interventions, resulting in improved science and democracy. Importantly, the book reveals how local knowledge can be "scaled up" to inform environmental health policy making beyond the neighborhood.

For more detail about the book visit the MIT Press web site, read a review of the book in the August, 2005, volume of Environmental Health Perspectives, or purchase it at Amazon.com