By all measures: an examination of the relationship between segregation and health risk from air pollution

Abstract

A great deal of evidence suggests that African-Americans in more racially segregated communities are at a higher risk for a variety of health problems. Scholars have argued that these health inequalities might be explained by racial differences in exposure to air toxins. However, there are a number of ways to measure segregation, each representing different pathways of exposure. There has yet to be a systematic evaluation of how exposure to air toxins varies by these different measures, making it difficult to begin to theorize about the causal story linking segregation, pollution and health. This paper addresses this gap by examining how the health risk from industrial toxins varies by the 19 most commonly used segregation measures. Results show that, with the exception of two segregation measures, living in metro areas with relatively higher segregation levels, is associated with significantly greater health risk from industrial air toxins for all racial groups. Moreover, African-Americans in more segregated metro areas typically experience an added risk of exposure compared to non-Hispanic whites.

Are Socioeconomic Inequalities in Physical Health Mediated by Embodied Environmental Toxins?

“…Although this study contributes to previous work by bridging the fields of social epidemiology and environmental inequality and by formally testing established theoretical models, the veracity of our results is contingent on replication with longitudinal data and more comprehensive assessments of socioeconomic status. Additional research is also needed to explore socioeconomic variations in toxin exposure and physical health in different national contexts and at different levels of analysis (Ard 2015(Ard , 2016Ard et al 2016). Research along these lines would advance our collective understanding of the environmental processes linking socioeconomic status and health.…”

Environmental justice and natural resource extraction: intersections of power, equity and access

“…As decades of unregulated industrial production accumulated in decaying infrastructure and contaminated sites, low-income communities and communities of color in the U.S. began to mobilize against their exposure to environmental contaminants (Bullard 2005;Taylor 2000Taylor , 2014Taylor , 2016Newman 2016). Hundreds of studies have now confirmed that patterns of environmental inequity exist and that poor, marginalized peoples, particularly Indigenous communities and communities of color, are the most impacted by environmental risks and injustices originating in industrial, extractive systems (Ard 2015(Ard , 2016; Campbell, Peck, and Tschudi 2010; Clark, Millet, and Marshall 2014; Downey and Hawkins 2008;Faber and Krieg 2002;Grant et al 2010;Liévanos 2015;Mohai, Pellow, and Timmons Roberts 2009a, b;Mohai et al 2011;Mohai and Saha 2015;Pastor, Sadd, and Hipp 2001). These marginalized spaces often become environmental sacrifice zones (Kuletz 1998;Lerner 2010) Conceptually, environmental justice hinges on a few different kinds of justice, namely: distributive, procedural, recognition, and restorative justice (Schlosberg 2007(Schlosberg , 2013.…”

Power, proximity, and physiology: does income inequality and racial composition amplify the impacts of air pollution on life expectancy in the United States?

“…Environmental justice and public health research suggest that segregation produces and reinforces structural inequities in the context of residential proximity to emitters of industrial pollution (Boyce and Pastor 2013, Mohai and Saha 2015, Ard 2016, Pulido 2016, Brailsford et al 2018, Mikati et al 2018. For example, Mikati and colleagues (2018) find that socioeconomically disadvantaged groups and neighborhoods are exposed to higher levels of PM 2.5 from facilities than wealthier communities, and this pattern is especially pronounced for black communities that are often socioeconomically disadvantaged.…”

“…A substantial body of research shows that racial/ethnic minority populations in the United States, especially black populations, tend to live close to harmful sources of pollution because they are more likely to reside in neighborhoods that are segregated and socially isolated due to historical and structural inequalities, race-based discrimination, and racialized housing practices (e.g. Gee and Payne-Sturges 2004, Downey 2005, Brulle and Pellow 2006, Downey and Hawkins 2008, Taylor 2014, Ard 2016, Pulido 2016. As Brulle and Pellow (2006:109) explain, 'racial segregation is a major contributor to the creation and maintenance of environmental inequality because governments and corporations often seek out the path of least resistance when locating polluting facilities'.…”