Environmental Equity Research: Review With Focus on Outdoor Air Pollution Research Methods and Analytic Tools

Abstract

The objective of this study was to review environmental equity research on outdoor air pollution and, specifically, methods and tools used in research, published in English, with the aim of recommending the best methods and analytic tools. English language publications from 2000 to 2012 were identified in Google Scholar, Ovid MEDLINE, and PubMed. Research methodologies and results were reviewed and potential deficiencies and knowledge gaps identified. The publications show that exposure to outdoor air pollution differs by social factors, but findings are inconsistent in Canada. In terms of study designs, most were small and ecological and therefore prone to the ecological fallacy. Newer tools such as geographic information systems, modeling, and biomarkers offer improved precision in exposure measurement. Higher-quality research using large, individual-based samples and more precise analytic tools are needed to provide better evidence for policy-making to reduce environmental inequities.

Socioeconomic Disparities and Air Pollution Exposure: a Global Review

“…Some statistical methods used in environmental inequality research may produce biased findings [1, 5]. Although a variety of methods are used to evaluate inequality, many researchers use a regression based approach to quantify the magnitude and direction of the inequality.…”

Health Impacts of Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation: Current Scientific Debates and Regulatory Issues

“…This approach may obviously lead to biased conclusions through “ecological fallacy” that occur when data averaged for a group are used to make conclusions about an individual. 52 The meta-analyses of various pathologies from exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation and estimates of potential mortality risks in exposed populations are commonly limited by heterogeneity between studies. There is high probability that uncontrolled confounding factors in several populations and occupational groups by particular lifestyle factors and higher dose groups (>500 mSv) drive the revealed trends.…”

Who benefits from environmental policy? An environmental justice analysis of air quality change in Britain, 2001–2011

“…Others find that minorities become over represented as housing and employment constrains their mobility more than other groups (Been and Gupta 1997, Stretesky and Hogan 1998, Mitchell et al 1999, Lercher et al 2005, Richardson et al 2010, Depro et al 2012, Ramirez-Cuesta 2012, Meir 2013, Pais et al 2014. Evidence is also found that poor and minority communities lack capacity for collective action to resist siting of hazardous activities (Hamilton 1993, Hamilton 1995, Hurley 1997, Pastor et al 2001, Saha and Mohai 2005, Laurian and Funderburg 2013 and conversely that middle class communities are better able to expel them (Ramirez-Cuesta 2012).…”