Environmental Health Related Socio-Spatial Inequalities: Identifying "Hotspots" of Environmental Burdens and Social Vulnerability.

Rehana Shrestha,Martin Van Maarseveen,Johannes Flacke,Javier Martinez

doi:10.3390/ijerph13070691

Rehana Shrestha, Martin Van Maarseveen + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13070691

Copy DOI

Abstract

Differential exposure to multiple environmental burdens and benefits and their distribution across a population with varying vulnerability can contribute heavily to health inequalities. Particularly relevant are areas with high cumulative burdens and high social vulnerability termed as “hotspots”. This paper develops an index-based approach to assess these multiple burdens and benefits in combination with vulnerability factors at detailed intra-urban level. The method is applied to the city of Dortmund, Germany. Using non-spatial and spatial methods we assessed inequalities and identified “hotspot” areas in the city. We found modest inequalities burdening higher vulnerable groups in Dortmund (CI = −0.020 at p < 0.05). At the detailed intra-urban level, however, inequalities showed strong geographical patterns. Large numbers of “hotspots” exist in the northern part of the city compared to the southern part. A holistic assessment, particularly at a detailed local level, considering both environmental burdens and benefits and their distribution across the population with the different vulnerability, is essential to inform environmental justice debates and to mobilize local stakeholders. Locating “hotspot” areas at this detailed spatial level can serve as a basis to develop interventions that target vulnerable groups to ensure a health conducive equal environment.

Highlights

People living in urban environments are increasingly exposed to severe conditions of air pollution, noise nuisance, and heat stress which critically influence their health and wellbeing [1]
Sadd et al [38], who used the neighborhood scale unit, and Vlachokostas et al [39], who used the activity space of people as a unit of analysis. We argue that these methods are insufficient to provide a small-scaled assessment of multiple burdens and benefits across the social vulnerability of the population
If there is perfect equality in the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits across social vulnerable groups, the graph will be a straight diagonal crossing the origin at 45 ̋. Curves above this equality line indicate an unequal distribution with social units of higher vulnerability bearing disproportionately higher environmental burdens; for curves below the equality line it is the other way around

Summary

Introduction

People living in urban environments are increasingly exposed to severe conditions of air pollution, noise nuisance, and heat stress which critically influence their health and wellbeing [1]. On the other hand urban areas provide resources such as parks and green areas that have the potential to attenuate noise levels [2], absorb air pollution concentration [3], regulate microclimate ecosystem services [4] or provide opportunities for health promoting physical activities of their inhabitants [5]. These pathogenic factors (chemical/physical stressors) and salutogenic factors (resources) exist simultaneously and even interact with each other [6,7]. These socio structural factors, such as race, ethnicity, SES, etc., are found to

Methods

Results

Conclusion