Investigating the Impact of Environmental Pollution on Urban Health with an Emphasis on Social Justice (Case study: Neighborhoods of Rasht City)

Document Type : Original article

Authors

Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Guilan University, Rasht, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: The ever-increasing growth of the urban population in recent decades has caused damage to human communities and the human environment. So the lack of attention to this issue in the near future will cause irreparable financial, human, and environmental damage to the geographical environment of human life, In this regard, given the importance and necessity of the issue of environmental justice in urban health and the existence of widespread inadequacies and inconsistencies in this area, the purpose of this article is to: investigate the impact of environmental pollution on urban health with an emphasis on social justice in the neighborhoods of Siah Astalakh, Rudbartan, Fakhb, and Shahrak‑e Kompost in Rasht (2022).
Materials and Methods: This research is considered an applied research in terms of its purpose and a descriptive-analytical research in terms of its nature and method. Data collection was carried out through a questionnaire with 10 main indicators and 51 items extracted through a review of valid research documents and field observations. For this purpose, in order to ensure the validity of the questionnaire and the selected indicators and items, these questions were provided to seven professors and researchers of urban planning and urban geography, and after applying their opinions, the questionnaire was finally revised and approved. Accordingly of air pollution, noise, water and soil, visual, vegetation, environmental behavior, environmental health, physical environment - services, urban health system and justice that are involved in the formation of environmental pollution in the neighborhoods of Rasht were identified and used to achieve the research goal. The statistical population consisted of citizens over 15 years of age living in the selected neighborhoods of Rasht, which, according to the latest general population and housing census of 2016, had a population of over 50,000 people. Therefore, the statistical sample size was determined using the Cochran formula as 381 people with a confidence coefficient of 0.95. However, due to better reliability and randomization of the questionnaire size, 400 samples were considered, so that 100 questionnaires were distributed in each neighborhood. SPSS, Smart PLS software, structural equation modeling (SEM) and the Friedman test were used to analyze the findings from the field studies.
Results and Discussion: The findings of the research showed that there are very strong and positive relationships between the factors of environmental pollution and justice in urban health. So that the path coefficient obtained with 0.691 indicates that the hypothesis is confirmed, therefore environmental pollution has a significant effect on justice in urban health and this effect is of high intensity. Among the four neighborhoods studied, the order of pollution levels is: Rudbartan, Siah Astalakh, Fakhb, and finally Shahrak Kompost. The Shahrak-e compost neighborhood has a higher level of pollution due to its ranking in the last place.
Conclusion: Based on the results of the Friedman test it was found that among the four investigated neighborhoods, the highest level of dissatisfaction with environmental pollution and urban health belongs to the Shahrak Compost neighborhood (with an average of 1.94), followed by neighborhoods Fakhb (with an average of 2.19), Siah Astalakh (with an average of 2.77) and lastly Rudbartan neighborhood (with an average of 3.60) is located.

Keywords

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References

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