Supported by the University of Louisville, the Humana Foundation and the Health Equity Innovation Hub, the Air Justice website,, debuts at noon, March 28.

More than 50 UofL students have worked on the project since 2021 with a coalition that includes professors, community leaders and activists. The team conducted nearly 2,000 surveys around the Rubbertown area and also held workshops with residents to determine residentsā€™ informational needs.

Rubbertown was named for the tire and synthetic rubber plants built there during World War II. Air quality in the area has suffered as a result. In west and southwest Louisville, the areas that border Rubbertown, residents are predominantly Black and other people of color, most of whom also experience poverty.

ā€œThe Air Justice team considers air quality an environmental health equity issue, one that has a lot to do with literacy or with how information about air quality is distributed in the city,ā€ said Megan Poole, UofL assistant professor of English, College of Arts & Sciences. ā€œThe Air Justice website decodes the science and health effects of air pollution, uncovers the history of environmental injustice in West Louisville, amplifies residentsā€™ stories related to air pollution, and directs residents to resources for reporting odors and pushing for increased air quality regulation.ā€Ā 

In addition to Poole and the students, theĀ Environmental Health Literacy CoalitionĢż¾±²Ō³¦±ō³Ü»å±š²õ:

• Shavonnie Carthens, assistant professor of law, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law;
• Keisha Dorsey, who formerly represented Louisville Metro Council District 3, an area bordering Rubbertown, and is now deputy chief of staff to Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, and
• the grassroots activist group Rubbertown Emergency Action (REACT).

Human health risks associated with the chemicals released in the Rubbertown area are over 10,000 times higher than the industry average.

ā€œEven more pronounced is the inequity of this health issue,ā€ Poole said. ā€œOver 60% of residents identify as ā€˜minority,ā€™ over 50% identify as Black, and over 52% experience poverty.ā€

This website launch is only the beginning of Air Justiceā€™s health equity work. ā€œThis website is a communal work in progress,ā€ Carthens said. The project aims to co-create health equity solutions alongside residents and local communities.

Air Justice also launched on Instagram (@airjusticelou) and Facebook (Air Justice Louisville) to begin engaging community members prior to the public launch of the website.Ā 

The project has received over $350,000 through support from The Gheens Foundation,Ā and the Humana Foundation.

UofL student-led teams are endeavoring to help some Louisville neighborhoods access understandable, useful information that might affect their health, specifically as it relates to air quality.

The project is one for the Public Health Literacy Group, a coalition of academic scholars, community leaders and activists focused on making the science of public health more accessible. The work recently got a $250,000 boost from the Humana Foundation as part of its ongoing Community Partners Program.

The team includes three UofL scholars ā€“ Megan Poole from English, Shavonnie Carthens from law and Abigail Koenig from business ā€“ who, with their students, have banded with District 3 Metro Councilwoman Keisha Dorsey, grassroots organization Rubbertown Emergency Action (REACT) and the nonprofit Kristy Love Foundation.

Dorseyā€™s western Louisville district includes several neighborhoods involved in environmental justice efforts related to air conditions stemming from large chemical plants and other industries in an area locally referred to as Rubbertown, named after tire and synthetic rubber plants built there during World War II.

The project began when Poole was invited to a western Louisville organizationā€™s board meeting to explain how she has her students work with nonprofits and community groups on their writing projects to gain useful experience.

ā€œI believe you learn best by doing, so I try to give them real-world assignments and real-world prompts,ā€ Poole said. ā€œAnd thatā€™s also how you kind of learn the messiness of business.ā€

In the audience was Dorsey, who approached her afterward seeking help to translate information that comes out about air pollution into something that her constituents can potentially care about and understand.

Poole, still in her first year at UofL, turned the issue over to her ā€œWriting for Social Changeā€ class last spring. Her students decided there needed to be a website where this material could be housed, and they created infographics to make information more comprehensible.Ā 

ā€œThey discovered there was no central hub to talk about the science of air pollution or file complaints or ask questions,ā€ she said.

So now student workers under the direction of Koenig in the College of Business will be working on a website, testing with the community and handling the data analytics, trying to see how people engage with the material and how to increase their engagement.

Through Carthens, a legal writing intern from the Brandeis School of Law is helping work on the language of announcements and information in hopes of making legal notices more easily comprehendible as public health notices.

The Kristy Love Foundation, a survivor-led organization that helps women suffering from traumas including human trafficking and abuse, will help with community focus groups. Women there will be hired to help the team choose locations for the group meetings and to spread the word through canvassing the affected neighborhoods.

The team will rely on neighborhood involvement and serious listening to direct the way citizens want to receive their information, whether it be digitally, on paper or via other ways.

ā€œIt really is a community project. What do you know about air pollution? What do you want to know? How do you currently receive this information, if at all,ā€ Poole said. ā€œWe feel like before you create information for a specific audience, you have to find out how they want the information.ā€

The team also will be relying on the longtime, justice advocacy work and knowledge of the REACT group.

At UofL Poole and the other faculty members involved let the students try new things and see what works best to meet community needs.

ā€œThey are using the skills they learn to really make a difference now, as opposed to hypothetically one day,ā€ Poole said. ā€œIt helps them grapple with what work looks like in the real world. Iā€™m excited about it.ā€