Community Health Equity & Justice

Moms Clean Air Force is committed to exposing injustices in communities most impacted by the climate crisis, including those living near pollution sources. In our efforts to take a stand against all types of discrimination, members of our Community Health Justice campaign work to hold legislators accountable for lack of resources, educate communities on their rights and their issues, stand with people living in and organizing in affected communities, and fight for clean air and climate solutions to promote healthy children and healthy communities.

What We’re Working On

Maternal Health for Women of Color

While pregnancy is a time of extreme sensitivity for all, Black mothers in the U.S. experience drastically high maternal and infant mortality rates—they’re three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. Air pollution exacerbates existing health disparities, disproportionately affecting mothers of color and their infants.

As part of our Maternal Health work, we participate in events like the Black Maternal Health Conference and the Black Maternal Health Caucus Stakeholder Summit. We also support legislation that would improve the health of mothers of color and their babies as well as create educational resources like the Air Pollution, Extreme Heat, and Black Maternal Health fact sheet.

Electric School Buses

We are working tirelessly to ensure that school districts nationwide replace dirty diesel-powered transportation with electric school buses. Diesel buses spew exhaust laden with pollutants such as soot, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. This pollution can trigger asthma attacks, interfere with lung development, contribute to cancer—and even reduce children’s ability to learn. Electric school buses run on battery power with no harmful tailpipe emissions.

Diesel pollution is an issue of health justice. Because of housing discrimination and other unjust policies, Black communities are more likely to be near transportation routes and are disproportionately harmed by traffic pollution. The communities most affected by toxic diesel exhaust have been nicknamed “asthma alleys” and “diesel death zones” because of the serious health effects suffered by residents.

Get involved in your state

Health Justice and Injustice

In this video series, we speak with experts, including elected officials, moms, and medical professionals, about the questions many parents and caregivers have about how to protect our families’ health during this time of supercharged global warming. We address how we can hold EPA accountable and how we can engage with lawmakers and health care experts to demand stronger air and climate pollution protections.

Frequent topics include how health injustice impacts Black families, the real-life impact of climate change to human health, and solutions for improving our health—all through the lens of justice and injustice. Our past interviews range from the broad (a two-part discussion about the climate crisis and its mental health impacts) to more narrow topics (soot pollution and our health).

Watch the series

OUR COMMUNITY HEALTH JUSTICE TEAM

Almeta Cooper

National Manager, Health Justice

Stephanie Reese

Director, Strategic Implementation and Justice

Luz Drada

Program Coordinator

DKC News

Media Contact

Partners

We partner with a variety of organizations and local communities, including faith-based communities, as well as engage members of the Congressional Black Caucus and local elected officials on ensuring all families have access to clean air, clean water, and a health environment.