Racismo ambiental, saúde e direitos sociais: causalidades e impactos da degradação ambiental em comunidades vulneráveis no Brasil

n the Brazilian context, environmental racism is a reality that exposes vulnerable com-munities, especially those historically marginalized, to unequal access to environmental resources, health, and social rights. This phenomenon manifests itself in systematic prac-tices that direct the impacts of environmental degradation toward racialized and socioec-onomically disadvantaged groups. In this scenario, central questions emerge: How does environmental racism compromise the health and social rights of these communities, per-petuating structural inequalities? To investigate this issue, this study used a qualitative (Minayo, 2016), descriptive, and bibliographic (Gil, 1999) approach, coupled with a com-prehensive perspective (Weber, 2006). The research was based on a theoretical review of authors such as Achille Mbembe (2018), with the concept of necropolitics, and RobertBullard (1993), a pioneer in environmental racism studies, in addition to national refer-ences such as Porto et al. (2013), Abreu (2013), Herculano (2022), and others who ana-lyze the intersection between environmental degradation, public health, and racialine-quality. The results indicate that environmental racism in Brazil is not limited to the unfair distribution of environmental burdens but intertwines with the exclusion from access to quality public health, undermining the guarantee of fundamental rights. In peripheral ar-eas, where black, indigenous, and quilombola populations predominate, the dispropor-tionate exposure to contamination of soil, water, and air highlights the causalities of en-vironmental degradation and its direct impacts on quality of life. It is concluded that ad-dressing environmental racism requires not only robust public policies but also the pro-motion of environmental justice that integrates health, education, and social rights as pil-lars of transformation.