Abstract
This article extends environmental risk perception research by exploring how potential health risk from exposure to industrial and vehicular air pollutants, as well as other contextual and socio-demographic factors, influence racial/ethnic differences in air pollution health risk perception. Our study site is the Greater Houston metropolitan area, Texas, USA—a racially/ethnically diverse area facing high levels of exposure to pollutants from both industrial and transportation sources. We integrate primary household-level survey data with estimates of excess cancer risk from ambient exposure to industrial and on-road mobile source emissions of air toxics obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Statistical analysis is based on multivariate generalized estimation equation models which account for geographic clustering of surveyed households. Our results reveal significantly higher risk perceptions for non-Hispanic Black residents and those exposed to greater cancer risk from industrial pollutants, and also indicate that gender influences the relationship between race/ethnicity and air pollution risk perception. These findings highlight the need to incorporate measures of environmental health risk exposure in future analysis of social disparities in risk perception.
Highlights
Under the rubric of environmental justice (EJ) research, a wide range of quantitative case studies have found neighborhoods with higher proportions of racial/ethnic minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents to be disproportionately exposed to various environmental risks in theU.S [1,2,3,4]
In order to explore the statistical effects of our explanatory variables on Air pollution health risk perception (APHRP), three multivariate models based on the generalized estimation equation (GEE) approach are utilized
Non-Hispanic White status was treated as the reference group in all models and excluded from the GEEs
Summary
Under the rubric of environmental justice (EJ) research, a wide range of quantitative case studies have found neighborhoods with higher proportions of racial/ethnic minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents to be disproportionately exposed to various environmental risks in theU.S [1,2,3,4]. Few studies have examined how concerns or perceptions associated with environmental hazards such as air pollution are influenced by ambient exposure to toxic chemicals from local sources, especially for racial/ethnic minorities who are likely to face greater exposure to such environmental health risks. A number of prior studies suggest that racial/ethnic minorities demonstrate higher levels of environmental concern than Whites, especially when such concerns are framed in terms of environmental health risk [8,9,10,11,12]. The literature on environmental social movements indicates that people exposed to higher levels of air pollution risk tend to have heightened risk perceptions and are more likely to mobilize based on perceived injustices [5,17,18,19,20]
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