2022/03/08 by Amanda Giang, David R. Boyd, Aspen J. Ono +1
Engineering · Social Sciences · #Environmental Justice and Health Disparities #Mining and Resource Management #Risk Perception and Management
paper · doi:10.1111/cag.12754
openalex publication_date 2022/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Environmental injustices—in the form of inequitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits, uneven access to decision‐making processes, and misrecognition of communities—have been documented globally. However, in Canada, many have argued that the story of environmental injustice is less widely known, with more fragmented research that has produced little in terms of public policies intended to alleviate injustice. This paper uses a meta‐narrative review approach to map the evolution of environmental justice research in Canada between 2006‐2017, and characterize how central themes, emerging trends, and gaps in the literature have changed since the last review of this kind was completed. We conducted a systematic search of publications addressing environmental justice in Canada, yielding 820 publications. We coded abstracts to assess patterns of coverage across space, time, topics, and populations of focus. We find that Canadian environmental justice literature has continued to grow in quantity and scope, addressing more dimensions of environmental harms and benefits, and from an increasingly integrated perspective. However, there remain important and persistent gaps in its coverage. Future research that more fully addresses these geographic (e.g., Atlantic and Prairie regions), topical (e.g., focus on prevention), and recognitional (e.g., racialization) gaps is needed to inform policy‐making and promote justice .