Air Pollution

Occupational Justice

Identify a group or population that you think is being impacted by an issue. This could be people in your building, people in your community or another community, people in the United States or another country, etc. Over the course of this assignment, you will identify how a specific issue impacts this group or population, the occupational impact of this issue, and a potential solution to improve how this group or population performs or engages in these occupations.

You will include this information in a poster to provide to your classmates and will discuss your work in class. Feel free to be creative with your formatting, as long as your poster conveys the work you have put into this assignment and clearly communicates your answer to each of the questions below.

Section 1: Choosing Your Topic

1. What is the group or population you would like to choose? You can choose one of the examples below, combine the examples below (e.g., Black women), make the examples below more specific (e.g., trans people of color), or choose any other group or population.
Examples:
-The U.S. population -The LGBTQ+ Community -Older Adults
-Black Americans/African-Americans -People with Physical Disabilities
-Women -Muslims

Example: the U.S. population

2. What is the issue affecting this group or population? This could be a specific event or a problem that has not been properly addressed (though avoid general terms, like “racism”). You can choose one of the examples below, combine the examples below, make the examples more specific, or choose any other issue.
Examples:
-COVID-19 –Police brutality -Wildfires/other natural disasters -Food inequity
-Gun violence/control -Mass incarceration -Limited funding for social services
-Homelessness
Example: decreased USPS service

3. Why is the issue you chose a problem for the group or population you chose? (If you are having trouble thinking of why this issue is a problem for this group or population, you may want to reconsider changing your group/population or your issue so that you can best complete this assignment.)

Example: decreased USPS service leads to a lessened ability to vote by mail in the 2020 general election
Section 2: Assessing the Impact on Occupations and Occupational Justice

1. What are at least two occupations of the impacted group that are related to the issue you chose?

Example: voting, community participation

2. How does this issue impact each of these occupations? Feel free to choose more than one. (What is a potential occupational injustice that exists because of this issue?)

Example: decreased ability to vote using the mail (voting); decreased ability to participate in community decisions (community participation)

3. Identify a sociocultural factor, socioeconomic factor, diversity factor, lifestyle choice, or other trait of this group or population (or a subset of this group or population) that may not be properly supported, which would contribute to the occupational injustice that exists due to this issue.

Example: people with disabilities may rely on voting by mail if polls are inaccessible, leaving them less likely to be able to vote if voting by mail is affected

4. Identify at least one barrier in the environment (physical, social, temporal, virtual, etc.) that make it harder to perform this occupation.

Example: social/political environment- a lack of political support and funding for USPS prevents it from running as well as it could

Section 3: Improving Occupational Participation and Engagement

1. What could help this group or population improve their ability to perform this daily occupation?

Example: opening other delivery locations (such as FedEx and USPS) to assist with deliveries.

2. Provide two resources that could help support this group or population to engage in this occupation. These may be existing resources or resources that you would like to create.

Examples:
-Increased access to drop-box locations to use instead of traditional mail to cast a ballot.
-Using state election office websites for rules to make mail-in voting easier

3. How will these supports improve the way people participate, engage in, or perform this occupation? Provide at least one APA citation related to each of your two resources/supports.

Example: they will improve people’s knowledge of the process of mail-in voting to ensure their votes are counted, and improve the accessibility of locations to cast mail-in ballots, therefore increasing the likelihood of participating in voting

4. How will people’s health, quality of life, and well-being improve as a result of the improvements to these occupations? Provide at least three examples in total.

Example: by being able to vote:
-Social health will improve through improved connection with their community and country.
-Mental health will improve through increased sense of control over their participation in their government
-Quality of life will improve by increasing the likelihood their needs and wants will be reflected through government decisions. For more information on Air Pollution read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution