Social disparities in health: Disproportionate toxicity proximity in minority communities over a decade

Abstract

This study employs latent trajectory models measuring the level of toxic waste over a decade in the cities of six highly populated, ethnically diverse, counties in southern California from 1990-2000 in 3,001 tracts. We find that tracts with 15% more Latinos are exposed to 84.3% more toxic waste than an average tract over this time period and tracts with 15% more Asians are exposed to 33.7% more toxic waste. Conversely, tracts with one standard deviation more residents with at least a bachelor's degree (15.5%) are exposed to 88.8% less toxic waste than an average tract. We also found that these effects were considerably weaker when using the raw pounds of toxic waste rather than the toxicity-weighted measure, suggesting that future research will want to account for the toxicity of the waste.Keywords: environmental justice, neighborhoods, longitudinal, race/ethnicity. (Been 1995;Bolin et al. 2002;Downey 1998;Hite 2000;Hockman, and Morris 1998;Krieg 1995;Mohai, and Saha 2006;Pastor, Sadd, and Hipp 2001). This puts those living in such communities at risk for exposures that may be related to numerous diseases and disabilities.The extensive literature studying possible disproportionate proximity among racial and ethnic minority populations to toxic waste largely employs cross-sectional designs and analyses (Anderton et al. 1994;Baden, and Coursey 2002;Been 1995;Bolin et al. 2002;Downey 1998;Hite 2000;Hockman, and Morris 1998;Krieg 1995;Mohai, and Saha 2006;Pastor, Sadd, and Morello-Frosch 2004;Sadd et al. 1999;Stretesky, and Hogan 1998). Furthermore, this literature focusing on the potential for possible disproportionate proximity to hazardous wastes based on race and socioeconomic status yields mixed findings: whereas several studies suggest a positive relationship between the proportion minority in a neighborhood (i.e., usually measured as tracts, a Census Bureau defined unit of approximately 4,000 persons) and the number of toxic waste Disproportionate toxicity proximity 2 sites (Been 1995;Bolin et al. 2002;Downey 1998;Hite 2000;Hockman, and Morris 1998;Krieg 1995;Mohai, and Saha 2006;Pastor et al. 2001), some studies have not detected such a relationship for African-Americans specifically (Anderton et al. 1994;Baden, and Coursey 2002;Sadd et al. 1999;Stretesky, and Hogan 1998) or minorities more generally (Bowen et al. 1995).Likewise, whereas some studies find a negative relationship between a neighborhood's economic resources and the presence of toxic sites (Bolin et al. 2002;Downey 1998;Hockman, and Morris 1998;Krieg 1995;Mohai, and Saha 2006), others have failed to find such a relationship (Baden, and Coursey 2002;Boer et al. 1997;Davidson, and Anderton 2000).Cross-sectional studies have limited ability to ascertain the causes of such proximity to toxic exposures among minority populations given that they only provide a snapshot of the process (Northridge et al. 2003). Indeed, there are competing viewpoints as to why minorities' disproportionate proximity to toxic sites is frequently observed in cross...

Disaggregating Data on Asian American and Pacific Islander Women to Provide New Insights on Potential Exposures to Hazardous Air Pollutants in California

“…Morello-Frosch and Jesdale used similar data to study residential segregation and estimated cancer risks associated with HAPs exposure in U.S. metropolitan areas and found that AAPIs as a group had higher estimated cancer risk than Non-Hispanic whites or blacks (61). Although few studies have evaluated potential disparities for the smaller and more diverse disaggregated AAPI groups, there has been a slowly growing body of literature suggesting that several of these groups face excess exposures to environmental hazards (28,(62)(63)(64) similar to other minority populations. Although our study is only exploratory in nature, the differences in estimated ambient air concentrations across and within the AAPI groups warrant further examination to identify potential disparities in environmental exposure by race and sociodemographics, which may inform future research directions in environmental-related adverse health outcomes.…”

“…At the same time, there has been increasing evidence that minority and low-income populations have a disproportionate burden of exposures owing to residential proximity to areas with higher levels of pollutants, including air pollution (28)(29)(30)(31)(32). These observations suggest a need to examine environmental exposures, particularly air pollution, for the AAPI population, taking into consideration heterogeneity in ethnic and other sociodemographic factors.…”

From Waste to Resource: The Trade in Wastes and Global Recycling Economies

“…Early work highlighted the polluting wastes of manufacturing industries and their effects on environmental health, as well as controversies over waste management 20 infrastructures, where anti-incineration campaigns have been a backbone of studies linked to NIMBYism and locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) [120]. These concerns continue in the current literature [121,122,123,124]. …”

Identifying inequitable exposure to toxic air pollution in racialized and low-income neighbourhoods to support pollution prevention

“…Sicotte (2010) assigned hazard points to Philadelphia facilities and found that hazard burdens tended to be concentrated in areas with more minority residents, more vacant housing units, and more adults without a high-school diploma. Hipp and Lakon (2010) found that in six Southern California (USA) census tracts, those with more Latinos and Asians were more likely to be exposed to toxic waste, while those with a high proportion of residents with post-secondary education were less likely to be exposed. The effects were stronger when weights were applied to account for toxicity of the waste.…”