Understanding Racial Disparities in Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Considering the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Population Distribution

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of spatiotemporal distributions of racial groups on disparities in exposure to traffic-related air pollution by considering people’s daily movement patterns. Due to human mobility, a residential neighborhood does not fully represent the true geographic context in which people experience racial segregation and unequal exposure to air pollution. Using travel-activity survey data containing individuals’ activity locations and time spent at each location, this study measures segregation levels that an individual might experience during the daytime and nighttime, estimates personal exposure by integrating hourly pollution maps and the survey data, and examines the association between daytime/nighttime segregation and exposure levels. The proximity of each activity location to major roads is also evaluated to further examine the unequal exposure. The results reveal that people are more integrated for work in high-traffic areas, which contributes to similarly high levels of exposure for all racial groups during the daytime. However, white people benefit from living in suburbs/exurbs away from busy roads. The finding suggests that policies for building an extensive and equitable public transit system should be implemented together with the policies for residential mixes among racial groups to reduce everyone’s exposure to traffic-related air pollution and achieve environmental justice.

Unexpected Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on the Air Quality in the Metro Atlanta, USA Using Ground-based and Satellite Observations

“…Geographically, Atlanta is an isolated non-attainment area and its major source of air pollutants are from local emissions (Diem, 2009). As one of the most diverse major cities in the U.S., Atlanta has been suffering air quality disparities and environmental justice for a long time (Park and Kwan, 2020;Servadio et al, 2019). These environmental justice issues have worsened worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kerr et al, 2021).…”

Distributional impacts of fleet-wide change in light duty transportation: mortality risks of PM2.5 emissions from electric vehicles and Tier 3 conventional vehicles

“…Between Tier 1 (1994) and Tier 3 standards (2017), the allowed NO x (nitrous oxide) and PM 2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 µm) emissions per mile from gasoline vehicles decreased by more than 90% [1,2]. However, LDVs continue to contribute to 10% of the total PM 2.5 attributable premature mortality, with disproportionate impacts on people of color and minorities [3][4][5]. Historical race-based housing segregation and land-use practices like building freeways through communities of color perpetuate these systemic transportation inequalities despite massive improvements in overall air quality [3,6].…”

“…However, LDVs continue to contribute to 10% of the total PM 2.5 attributable premature mortality, with disproportionate impacts on people of color and minorities [3][4][5]. Historical race-based housing segregation and land-use practices like building freeways through communities of color perpetuate these systemic transportation inequalities despite massive improvements in overall air quality [3,6]. Studies have shown people of color are consistently exposed to higher concentrations of NO 2 (a marker for traffic pollution) than White people [7,8].…”

Climate change and the prevention of cardiovascular disease

“…Health care and other inequities will soar unless there are definite steps to avert this [ 22 ]. Already, racial minorities experience greater exposure to air pollution due to proximity to large roads and urban redlined areas (with the latter tending to be hotter than neighboring areas due to a lack of tree cover) [ [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] ].…”