Southern Chivalry: Perception of Health and

Environmental Injustice in a Small Southern Town

Brian S. Brijbag1,2

University of South Florida, College of Public Health Department of Health Policy and Management
2
University of South Florida, College of Arts and Science Department of Anthropology

1. Introduction

2. Research Setting

Concerns of environmental injustice are inherently social

issues yet are negotiated in scientific measures. How that
scientific, quantitative data is collected, communicated and
understood in a government generated risk assessment is
often done ignoring the cultural context in which that
knowledge has been obtained and is distributed (Lejano and
Stokols 2010:108). This leads to varying perceptions of health
risk with the science often presiding over the social.
Conflicts arise due to the risk message uni-directionally
passing from etic perspective to the residents, with the
subsequent discounting of the historical experience of the
risk (Morgan et al. 2002). Far from simply being varying
degrees of understanding, these differing ways of embodying
risk are fundamentally distinct in nature.

This research project has used as its case study the Mitchell
Heights neighborhood in South Brooksville (pop. ~400 with
98% black or African American) in Brooksville, FL (pop. 7,771
with 18% black or African American) that is home to the 5acre site of the former Hernando County Public Works
compound (US Census 2010). This facility has a history of
contamination, governmental avoidance and resident
agitation. The overall narrative is steeped in historical and
structural violences. This research examines how
environmental risk assessments - in its methodologies,
communication and practices - have addressed the lived
experiences of risk held by the residents. Furthermore, this
project examines how race and class can deepen a
population's exposure to, and perception of, risk.

3. Methods
Phase
One
Two
Three
Four

Both the participant observation and the interviews brought

out the stark contrast of how risk was perceived by the
government officials and the residents. For the community,
risk can be perceived to be critical if they do not have
control over the risk, or if the impact of the risk is close by
(Galea and Mony 2008:2). Public health officials, by
comparison, measure risk in terms associated with
providing decision makers with information that can be
used to minimize risks (Dyjack, Soret and Anderson
2002:309). One perspective understands risk as closely
related to their present experience of living while the latter
views risk as a dataset that serves as a proxy for
experimental life.
So risk is a problematic term in that, it has long since
been realized that objective risk is not a sufficient
explanation of perceived risk, not even for the experts, and at
times the two differ widely (Sjberg 2004:51). Studies have
shown that residents perception of risk, a phenomenological
or lived approach, can vary widely from those of the experts,
a measured approach (Rodricks 1994:263). This is especially
true in low-income areas or minority neighborhoods such as
Mitchell Heights where distrust of authority figures is
common and often historically justified. Risk is understood
asMeasured
follows: Experience
Lived Experience

Often presented as a statistic

Follows a Threshold Model of
analysis

Phenomenological in nature
Follows a Place Model of analysis

Focus on fixing gaps

Focus on fixing experience

The other datasets illustrated a similar situation

stakeholders who understood risks differently were vying to
have their perspectives valued. Often, the importance of
science was given precedence over the experiences of the
people and this resulted in conflicts and skepticism. For
example, during community surveys completed in Mitchell
Heights (N=50), when asked about the local Department of
Health, 66% had little to none confidence in that agency
while local administrative government fared even worse with
80% of respondents reporting the same opinion. In addition,
84% felt the government was not doing a good job at
protecting them from environmental dangers and 76% felt
their community was not becoming healthier.
These results relate to the different values placed on the
technical as opposed to the relational. The issues are
exacerbated when the cultural and social context are
neglected. This contrast for the community underlies a sense
of injustice, discrimination and exclusion while the
governmental officials see non-compliance, rebellion, and a
lack of willingness to accept objective knowledge. Risk is
thus culturally contingent and socially constructed and
communicated as demonstrated in the Risk Assessment
Communication Model (RAC) developed by this project.

Archival Data
Participant Observation
Semi-Structured Interviews
Cognitive Mapping
Ethnosemantic Analysis
Community Surveys

4. Objectives
This ethnographic project is designed to answer the
following research questions:
1.
How do the residents of Mitchell Heights perceive the
contamination at the former DPW site, the risks
associated with the site, and how does the site affect
their everyday lives?
2.
How do government personnel and scientists perceive
the contamination at the former DPW site, the risks
associated with the site, and how the site affects the
lives of the residents of Mitchell Heights?
3.
How do race and class affect the residents exposure to,
and perception of, risk as it relates to the former DPW
site? How can risk communication in public health
policy and practice better address residents perception
of risk?

5. Results
Reviewing the archival data, I illustrated the long history of
mistrust rooted within the structural realities of the City of
Brooksville. The city was named in 1856 to honor South
Carolina State Representative Preston Brooks, a staunch
advocate of slavery who is famous for his severe beating of
anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner on the U.S. Senate floor
(Hoffner 2013:526). This sentiment continued through a
series of high profile lynchings in the 1920s and resulted in a
1948 zoning law, which was stricken in 1972, that stated, "no
building or no part thereof shall be occupied by a person or
persons of the negro race" in north Brooksville and that the
south was closed to "persons of the white race" (Dewitt
1998). In 1978, the NAACP, on behalf of the residents in South
Brooksville, sued the city and county for discrimination in
Tampa courts and won a judgment of 2.3 million dollars that
was mostly paid out to white contractors and engineers with
little actual work being accomplished in South Brooksville
(Dewitt 1998). This is followed by decades of contamination
by the county on its Department of Public Works site which
sits in the heart of Mitchell Heights, a predominantly AfricanAmerican neighborhood occupied largely by the black
communitys teachers and leaders. The county officially
acknowledged the contamination in 1991 after 36 years of
continual environmental degradation. There have been
several cleanup attempts but the site, and surrounding
community, remains contaminated to this day.

Method

Aerial View of former Hernando County Department of Works. It shows the

proximity of the environmental hazard to the homes in Mitchell Heights.
Source: Google Earth (2014)

MitchelHeightscommunitymeetingpartialtranscriptwhich
highlightsmeasureversuslivedexperiencesofrisk:

AudienceMemberOne-"Ihadasisterthatdiedat
42.Shehadababythatweightedonepound!And
shehadotherthingsandyouaregoingtosithere
andtellmethattheneighborhooddidn't
contaminatemysister?Sheusedtoswelluplikea
bitch!Shediedat42yearsold!
AudienceMemberTwo-"Whatyouaretellingus
tonightthatyouaregoingtoacceptnothingthatwe
thecitizensaretellingyou?
Risk Assessment Communication Model - Traditional

EPAOfficial - "Wehavetogobasedonthedatathat
comesfromthelaboratory.Wehavetogoonthe
datawehave.Icanonlygoonthebasisonscience.
IfIdon'thavedatayouknow.

7.
Recommendations

1. As it relates to assessing environmental risks, there

needs to be a development of a more holistic toolkit that
incorporates diverse perspectives in a bi-directional
knowledge exchange as proposed in the revised RAC
model. This should allow for acceptable risk to be
understood as co-created through negotiation and
compromise. Ethnographic methods should partner with
epidemiology and environmental sciences.
2. Once this toolkit is developed, it needs to be adopted as
formal procedure by agencies responsible for the analysis
and communication of risks. Risk should include the
technical and the relational.
3. Policymakers must widen their understanding of what
constitutes policy relevant knowledge. In addition,
policies targeted at eliminating health disparities need to
value the broad differences the often exist in perceiving
being healthy as they can themselves be stressors of
health outcomes.

Survey Table 3 - Responses to questions concerning perceived

environmental problems
Question

Not A
Problem

Not too Big Somewhat

Big

Very Big

Here is a list of environmental problems some people say they have in their
community. Thinking about where you live, how do you view the severity of
the problem?
a. air pollution
9 (18%) 6 (12%) 8 (16%) 27 (54%)
b. water pollution
c. drinking water that has
harmful chemicals or other
materials in it

6 (12%)

4 (8%)

11 (22%) 29 (58%)

6 (12%)

6 (12%) 10 (20%) 28 (56%)

d. pesticides in the food

people eat

8 (16%)

7 (14%) 12 (24%) 23 (46%)

e. toxic waste

6 (12%)

6 (12%)

6 (12%) 23 (46%)

Results of community survey showing the extent of the residents perception of

environmental issues in the community.

6. Conclusions
1. Risk communication is a uni-directional transmission of
knowledge from the expert to the non-expert that values
science over the experience.
2. Risk, as a population-level indicator, is culturally
contingent and socially constructed.
3. Residents do not always accept the numerical, technical
understandings of risk and any threshold level other than
absolute zero is challenged. They often hear the risk
figures as individual risk as opposed to the population
risk they are meant to represent.
4. There are issues with translation of the risk message from
governmental agencies (Measured Experience) to
residents (Lived Experience) due to jargon and specialized
knowledge - the social context.
5. There are issues with translation of the risk message from
residents (Lived Experience) to governmental agencies
(Measured Experience) due to biases and power
differentials - the social context.
6. Conflicts arise from not giving value to differing risk
perceptions.

Risk Assessment Communication Model - Revised

References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Dewitt, Dan 1998 Racisms Remnant. St. Petersburg Times, February 22.
Dyjack, David T., Samuel Soret and Barbara Anderson 2002 Community-Based Environmental Risk Assessment. Public Health Reports (1974-) 117(3):309-312.
Galea, Veronics and Preethi R. Mony 2008 Understanding Environmental Risk. The Invisible Environment Fact Sheet Series. The Ohio State University Extension.
Hoffer, William James 2013 The Caning of Charles Sumner. Rutgers Law Journal 43:515-539.
Lejano, R., and D. Stokols 2010 Understanding Minority Residents Perceptions of Neighborhood Risks Environmental Justice: New Modalities, Findings, and Policy Implications. Journal of Architectural
and Planning Research 27(2):107123.
Morgan, M.G., B. Fischhoff, A. Bostrom and CJ Atman 2002 Risk Communication: A Mental Models Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rodricks, Joseph V. 1994 Risk Assessment, the Environment, and Public Health. Environmental Health Perspectives 102(3):258-264.
Sjberg, Lennart 2004 Explaining Individual Risk Perception: The Case of Nuclear Waste. Risk Management 6(1):51-64.
U.S. Census Bureau 2010 State and County Quickfacts: Florida. http://quickfacts.census.gov, accessed October 8, 2014.

Turning Science Into Health

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