Geography & Environment Publications
Beyond Physical Health Effects: Interpersonal and Community-Level Impacts of Chronic Chemical Contamination
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2002
Volume
55
Issue
12
Journal
Social Science & Medicine
First Page
2227
Last Page
2241
URL with Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(01)00367-7
Abstract
This paper contributes to the literature on community response to the announcement of well-established chemical contamination close to their homes. It describes a study of residents’ views of chemical contamination on a close and long-standing community in the context of impacts on everyday life. This followed the discovery early in 2000 that houses in Weston Village, in the County of Cheshire, England, were contaminated by the chemical hexachlorobutadiene which was seeping from a sealed chemical waste quarry owned by Imperial Chemical Industries, one of the world's largest chemical companies. Qualitative methods were used for the study. A total of 23 people from the village were interviewed in 15 focused, semi-structured interviews. This study highlights the importance of attention to secondary, community-level and interpersonal-level health impacts in the face of epidemiological uncertainty.
