Constructing Credible Knowledge and Expertise in Air Pollution Regulation and Monitoring: The Problem of Quantification

Policy initiatives that seek to address the disparate impacts of environmental pollution in historically disadvantaged communities—known as environmental justice (EJ) communities—are increasingly prominent at local, state, and federal levels. However, such initiatives are often grounded in technical and quantitative metrics produced without input from laypeople affected by environmental disparities.

Many residents in EJ communities assert that these metrics do not properly capture their knowledge or experience nor address their concerns. This research examines how lay people and technical experts measure pollution differently and investigates how and why communities’ knowledge and experience with pollution are not translated into policy action.

The results of this project will be widely disseminated to academic, public, and policy audiences to provide actionable strategies to better incorporate lay knowledge into the development of community-centered public policy.

This research uses case study methods, including semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and archival research, to understand the concerns, perspectives, and practices around air pollution monitoring and evaluation. It investigates novel questions raised in environmental justice policymaking: What happens when technical ways of knowing do not match the lived experiences of laypersons, particularly in historically disadvantaged communities of color?

What are the limitations of current policy infrastructure to grapple with these disconnects? Why do they persist? This approach creates space to investigate connections, patterns, and boundaries between lay knowledge, technical policymaking, and strategies to achieve environmental justice.

This research builds on studies of how citizens and policymakers work together to develop regulatory standards and examines what happens when these collectively produced metrics don’t reflect affected residents’ concerns. By analyzing debates over credible knowledge in this context, this project will provide insights into how environmental policymaking can take seriously the knowledge claims of affected communities.

Beyond these contributions, this study enhances scholarship on community-expert interactions, environmental governance, and the democratization of science and policy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.