Psychological Distress and Water Contamination in an Environmental Justice Community

Abstract

The experience of chronic environmental contamination is an increasingly prevalent environmental hazard faced by communities around the world with deleterious physical and mental health outcomes. However, these events represent an often-overlooked environmental justice issue in the psychology literature. This dissertation focused on the community stress experience related to historic contamination on the Tucson International Airport Area Superfund site in Tucson’s southside, a predominantly low-income and Latinx community. A survey (n = 363) using door-to-door and social media recruitment methods compared those who were potentially exposed to historical contamination to non-exposed southside residents and non-exposed residents of central Tucson. Measures included mental distress and wellbeing (stress, life satisfaction, depression), trauma (historical trauma, post-traumatic stress, disruption in core beliefs), environmental risk perceptions, efficacy, denial, environmental justice concerns, and social capital (social support, neighborhood social cohesion, civic engagement, and trust in institutions). The results of this study suggest that residents potentially exposed to historic contamination over forty years ago experience somewhat elevated levels of depression, post-traumatic stress, historical trauma, disruption in core beliefs, and environmental risk perceptions, but also higher life satisfaction. Some forms of social capital such as social support and neighborhood social cohesion also moderated various negative mental health impacts of exposure to historic contamination. This study has the potential to make theoretical contributions to the psychological literature on environmental justice issues, but also practical contributions to public health and advocacy in Tucson’s southside community.