Unequal Exposure Research Articles

Medición de la injusticia ambiental sobre poblaciones vulnerables y carenciadas por anegamientos pluviales: Un análisis en Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz (Argentina) basado en SIG

Los anegamientos producidos por lluvias intensas, recurrentes en muchas ciudades emplazadas dentro de planicies aluviales y con deficiente escorrentía, suelen ocasionar dispares grados de afección en la población, susceptibles de valorar desde la emergente perspectiva de la justicia ambiental. En esta aportación se pretende evaluar la exposición diferencial a dos eventos de anegamiento hídrico-pluvial por parte de varios grupos sociales vulnerables y con privaciones en la ciudad de Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz (Argentina) para desvelar posibles injusticias. Metodológicamente se delimitó el área urbana poblada (AUP), como ámbito relevante, y se seleccionó un conjunto de indicadores sociodemográficos expresando vulnerabilidad y privaciones humanas. El análisis recurrió intensamente a la tecnología SIG y a la técnica estadística de la χ², para estimar, como resultados relevantes, qué grupos sociodemográficos y qué partes de la ciudad han sufrido una sobre-afección calificable de injusta. La confrontación con los hallazgos de otros autores permitió reivindicar una mejor exactitud de nuestros resultados para el caso estudiado y postular la idoneidad y utilidad de la metodología adoptada en la planificación y gestión urbana, al considerar unas injusticias ambientales largamente soslayadas.

Highly uniform in-situ cell electrotransfection of adherent cultures using grouped interdigitated electrodes

Cell electrotransfection is an effective approach for transferring exogenous molecules into living cells by electric stimulation. The existing in-situ electrotransfection micro-devices for adherent cells exhibit the drawbacks of low transfection efficiency and low cell viability. An important reason for these drawbacks is the unequal exposure of cells to the electric field. It was found that cells growing directly below the energized electrodes experience a much lower electric field intensity when compared to the cells growing below the spacing area of the electrodes, resulting in low transfection with a strip-like pattern. Therefore, a new strategy for the in-situ electrotransfection of adherent cells growing in a standard 12-well plate is proposed in this study. By sequentially energizing electrodes arranged in a nested and non-contact manner, the cells were exposed to an overall equal intensity of the electric field, and thus a higher efficiency of transfection was achieved. The seven cell lines transfected using this method exhibited high transfection efficiency and high cell viability, demonstrating the potential for studying gene function.

Challenges in Environmental Health Research and Sustainability in a Less Developed Country: a Case Study From Jordan.

Environmental health research covers many aspects of the complex natural world and how environmental hazards, mainly caused by human activities, can affect population health. Researchers in this field have investigated environmental risks dose or exposure-response relationship, challenged hypotheses and interpreted data and results to solve problems. Researchers investigating environmental issues support the concept of environmental justice (EJ) and understand that they bear more responsibilities because they work to influence the policymakers' decisions in order to minimise hazardous exposure on populations. The environmental justice term has been widely used to describe unequal exposure of anthropogenic pollution or environmentally hazardous exposure to a group of people based on race, colour, national origin or income. The term has been defined and disseminated in many countries through governmental and non-governmental organisations. In Jordan, the government has carried the responsibilities to reduce the disproportionate exposure to environmental pollution between citizens and to promote the concepts of EJ. This review has highlighted the role of non-governmental organisations and the laws and regulations that prohibit assault to the environment and ensure the compliance of private and public organisations to minimise the effect of the undesirable environmental actions. Moreover, it addressed and discussed different possible sources of pollution and areas of heavy hazards exposure. In this review, we highlighted the main causes of lack of research on the EJ in Jordan and the effect of income and ethnicity background. We also recommended applying the responsible conduct of research principles and guidelines to commence researches that can affect policymakers in this field in Jordan.

Air-Toxic Clusters Revisited: Intersectional Environmental Inequalities and Indigenous Deprivation in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regions

The research on quantitative intersectional environmental inequality outcomes examines how the spatial concentration of individuals occupying multiply marginalized social identities is associated with unequal exposure to environmental hazards. One recent exemplar study analyzed racialized and “intercategorical” environmental inequality outcomes in cancer-causing air pollution exposures for Whites, Blacks, Latinxs, and Asian/Pacific Islanders (APIs) at the census tract level in the continental United States. That study found that—net of region, urban-industrial context, and other intercategorical variables—a variable representing elevated concentrations of economically deprived and foreign-born Latinxs, Latina single-mother families, and primarily Spanish-speaking households was the most consistent intercategorical predictor of tract exposure to spatial clusters of carcinogenic air pollution in 2005. The present study reproduces that nationwide analysis while being the first to include disadvantaged Indigenous peoples in the examination of intercategorical environmental inequality outcomes in the continental United States and for the ten U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regions. Logistic regression analyses indicate that the spatial concentration of disadvantaged Indigenous peoples was not a significant nationwide predictor of tract exposure to the carcinogenic air pollution clusters. However, the regional analyses revealed eight new patterns of intercategorical environmental inequality outcomes across the U.S. EPA regions, and the spatial concentration of disadvantaged Indigenous peoples was a significant positive predictor of tract exposure to carcinogenic air pollution clusters in the Mid-Atlantic region. These findings have implications for future environmental justice research, policy, and activism.

Air pollution inequality and health inequality in China: An empirical study.

China's residents experience unequal exposure to air pollution in different regions, and the corresponding health consequences have increased remarkably. To ensure sustainable development, China should monitor health inequality and its potential determinants. This study empirically examines the health inequalities (represented by perinatal and tuberculosis mortalities) caused by air pollution inequalities (represented by SO2 and NOx emissions) from 31 Chinese provinces in the period 2006 to 2015, using the generalized method of moments (GMM) and quantile regression (QR). The GMM results reveal a strong positive relationship between SO2/NOx emission inequality and tuberculosis mortality inequality. In contrast, the QR results show that perinatal mortality inequality is closely related to emission inequality across all percentiles for SO2 emission and at the 75th percentile for NOx emission. Our findings help policymakers to identify health disparities and be mindful of air pollution inequality as a factor in the elimination of health inequality.

Remote Sensing in Environmental Justice Research—A Review

Human health is known to be affected by the physical environment. Various environmental influences have been identified to benefit or challenge people’s physical condition. Their heterogeneous distribution in space results in unequal burdens depending on the place of living. In addition, since societal groups tend to also show patterns of segregation, this leads to unequal exposures depending on social status. In this context, environmental justice research examines how certain social groups are more affected by such exposures. Yet, analyses of this per se spatial phenomenon are oftentimes criticized for using “essentially aspatial” data or methods which neglect local spatial patterns by aggregating environmental conditions over large areas. Recent technological and methodological developments in satellite remote sensing have proven to provide highly detailed information on environmental conditions. This narrative review therefore discusses known influences of the urban environment on human health and presents spatial data and applications for analyzing these influences. Furthermore, it is discussed how geographic data are used in general and in the interdisciplinary research field of environmental justice in particular. These considerations include the modifiable areal unit problem and ecological fallacy. In this review we argue that modern earth observation data can represent an important data source for research on environmental justice and health. Especially due to their high level of spatial detail and the provided large-area coverage, they allow for spatially continuous description of environmental characteristics. As a future perspective, ongoing earth observation missions, as well as processing architectures, ensure data availability and applicability of ’big earth data’ for future environmental justice analyses.

Measurement of Head and Neck Exposure in CT Guided IVR

In April 2011, the International Radiological Protection Committee recommended that "The equivalent dose of the crystalline lens should not exceed 20 mSv/year, averaged over defined periods of 5 years, with no single year exceeding 50 mSv". Based on this recommendation, it is predicted that the equivalent dose limit of our crystalline lens can be lowered in the near future. Therefore, it is important to grasp the current situation of radiation exposure. The purpose of this study is to measure the crystalline lens of surgeons by focusing on the CT-fluoroscopy guided interventional radiology's (IVRs). We also examined whether the exposure dose of the crystalline lens can be correctly evaluated by measuring the unequal exposure dose of the neck, which is usually used for the unequal exposure measurement. Results of the analysis of 200 CT-fluoroscopy guided IVR procedures showed that the unequal exposure dose of the neck was significantly correlated with the exposure dose of the crystalline lens which was measured near the left eye ball (R=0.83). However, the exposure dose of the crystalline was 33% lower than those of the neck. Therefore, although the individual dosimeter worn on the neck can be used as the useful index of the exposure dose of the crystalline lens, the results can be overestimated.

Digital Vulnerability: The Unequal Risk of E-Contact with the Criminal Justice System

Increased citizen interaction with the criminal justice system on digital platforms renders citizens more vulnerable to breaches of information to third parties. We introduce the concept of digital vulnerability to measure the extent to which technology produces unequal exposure to risk of data breaches. Using police-dispatcher radio communication, we examine the extent to which dispatchers reveal identifiable information about callers reporting crime. Data come from sixty audio-recorded hours of police-dispatcher radio communication across three racially distinct police radio zones in Chicago. Findings revealed that one of every ten calls made to police in zones serving racial minorities disclosed caller names or home addresses. We discuss implications for research on racial inequality in criminal justice contact, police-community relations, and policies concerning police-dispatcher radio communication.

Unequal residential exposure to air pollution and noise: A geospatial environmental justice analysis for Ghent, Belgium.

Following the growing empirical evidence on the health effects of air pollution and noise, the fair distribution of these impacts receives increasing attention. The existing environmental inequality studies often focus on a single environmental impact, apply a limited range of covariates or do not correct for spatial autocorrelation. This article presents a geospatial data analysis on Ghent (Belgium), combining residential exposure to air pollution and noise with socioeconomic variables and housing variables. The global results show that neighborhoods with lower household incomes, more unemployment, more people of foreign origin, more rental houses, and higher residential mobility, are more exposed to air pollution, but not to noise. Multiple regression models to explain exposure to air pollution show that residential mobility and percentage of rental houses are the strongest predictors, stressing the role of the housing market in explaining which people are most at risk. Applying spatial regression models leads to better models but reduces the importance of all covariates, leaving income and residential mobility as the only significant predictors for air pollution exposure. While traditional multiple regression models were not significant for explaining noise exposure, spatial regression models were, and also indicate the significant contribution of income to the model. This means income is a robust predictor for both air pollution and noise exposure across the whole urban territory. The results provide a good starting point for discussions about environmental justice and the need for policy action. The study also underlines the importance of taking spatial autocorrelation into account when analyzing environmental inequality.

The effects of public health policies on health inequalities in high-income countries: an umbrella review

BackgroundSocio-economic inequalities are associated with unequal exposure to social, economic and environmental risk factors, which in turn contribute to health inequalities. Understanding the impact of specific public health policy interventions will help to establish causality in terms of the effects on health inequalities.MethodsSystematic review methodology was used to identify systematic reviews from high-income countries that describe the health equity effects of upstream public health interventions. Twenty databases were searched from their start date until May 2017. The quality of the included articles was determined using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews tool (AMSTAR).ResultsTwenty-nine systematic reviews were identified reporting 150 unique relevant primary studies. The reviews summarised evidence of all types of primary and secondary prevention policies (fiscal, regulation, education, preventative treatment and screening) across seven public health domains (tobacco, alcohol, food and nutrition, reproductive health services, the control of infectious diseases, the environment and workplace regulations). There were no systematic reviews of interventions targeting mental health. Results were mixed across the public health domains; some policy interventions were shown to reduce health inequalities (e.g. food subsidy programmes, immunisations), others have no effect and some interventions appear to increase inequalities (e.g. 20 mph and low emission zones). The quality of the included reviews (and their primary studies) were generally poor and clear gaps in the evidence base have been highlighted.ConclusionsThe review does tentatively suggest interventions that policy makers might use to reduce health inequalities, although whether the programmes are transferable between high-income countries remains unclear.Trial registrationPROSPERO registration number: CRD42016025283

Investing in land to change your risk exposure? Land transactions and inequality in a landslide prone region

Abstract The poor and vulnerable tend to be increasingly exposed to natural hazards such as landslides. Land markets are one of the channels through which farmers get exposed to such hazards. This paper investigates the consequences of land transactions for the (un)equal distribution of exposure to landslide risk and of total land holdings in a rural area in Western Uganda. We propose and empirically test a mechanism through which land holdings and exposure to landslide risk evolve over a farmer’s lifetime. A structured household survey and detailed information on land transaction as well as georeferenced information on plots was used to construct a panel dataset of land transactions. Regressions with household fixed effects were run to identify how landholdings and exposure to landslide susceptibility evolves over a farmer’s lifetime. We find that farmers that are initially more exposed to landslides manage to reduce their average exposure to some extent by acquiring plots outside landslide prone areas. This goes at a cost, as farmers that are initially highly exposed acquire land more slowly than farmers that have a lower exposure on their first plot. Over a lifetime, in our case study, land transactions therefore have a somewhat levelling effect on inequality in exposure to landslides, but increase the inequality in land ownership. As such, one of the ways through which unequal risk exposure contributes to propagating inequality in total land ownings is theoretical and empirically identified.

Impact, efficiency, inequality, and injustice of urban air pollution: variability by emission location

Reducing exposure to air pollution is an important goal for many local and national governments. Disparities in air pollution exposure by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class are well documented; reducing these disparities is another important policy target. Meeting both goals requires tools to evaluate how emission reduction options affect average exposures and exposure disparities. Here, we consider the role of emission location in implementing control strategies, and investigate the effect of two practical, space-based approaches—low-emission zones and truck rerouting—on diesel particle levels in Southern California. We employ Eulerian grid modeling to explore the impact that emission location has on four outcomes important to policymakers: total pollution exposure, exposure efficiency (i.e. exposure impact per unit emission), exposure inequality (i.e. deviations from exposure being equally distributed across the population; unequal exposure among individuals), and exposure injustice (i.e. associations between exposure and demographic attributes such as race or ethnicity; unequal exposure among groups). Our results highlight potential trade-offs (e.g. an increase in equality but reduction in justice for interventions in some locations) as well as opportunities for ‘win-win’ solutions (locations for which emission reductions would reduce all four target outcomes). We find that a simple, straightforward approach—reducing emissions in neighborhoods with a high proportion of minority residents—may or may not yield the strongest benefits to environmental justice; the reason is that the straightforward approach fails to account for meteorology and where pollution travels after being emitted. In short, we demonstrate an approach that can be used to identify areas in which emissions reductions would have high efficiency and would also result in disproportionately large reductions to average exposure, exposure inequality, and exposure injustice. The approach presented here could be used to design and prioritize local or national emission reduction efforts.

Unequal Exposure or Unequal Vulnerability? Contributions of Neighborhood Conditions and Cardiovascular Risk Factors to Socioeconomic Inequality in Incident Cardiovascular Disease in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

Risk factors can drive socioeconomic inequalities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) through differential exposure and differential vulnerability. In this paper, we show how econometric decomposition directly enables simultaneous, policy-oriented assessment of these 2 mechanisms. We specifically estimate contributions of neighborhood environment and proximal risk factors to socioeconomic inequality in CVD incidence via these mechanisms. We followed 5,608 participants in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (2000-2012) to their first CVD event (median length of follow-up, 12.2 years). We used a summary measure of baseline socioeconomic position (SEP). Covariates included baseline demographics, neighborhood characteristics, and psychosocial, behavioral, and biomedical risk factors. Using Poisson models, we decomposed the difference (inequality) in incidence rates between low- and high-SEP groups into contributions of 1) differences in covariate means (differential exposure) and 2) differences in CVD risk associated with covariates (differential vulnerability). Notwithstanding large uncertainty in neighborhood estimates, our analysis suggested that differential exposure to poorer neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, adverse social environment, diabetes, and hypertension accounted for most of the inequality. Psychosocial and behavioral contributions were negligible. Further, neighborhood SEP, female sex, and white race were more strongly associated with CVD among low-SEP (vs. high-SEP) participants. These differentials in vulnerability also accounted for nontrivial portions of the inequality and could have important implications for intervention.

Disparities in Environmental Exposures to Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals and Diabetes Risk in Vulnerable Populations.

Burgeoning epidemiological, animal, and cellular data link environmental endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) to metabolic dysfunction. Disproportionate exposure to diabetes-associated EDCs may be an underappreciated contributor to disparities in metabolic disease risk. The burden of diabetes is not uniformly borne by American society; rather, this disease disproportionately affects certain populations, including African Americans, Latinos, and low-income individuals. The purpose of this study was to review the evidence linking unequal exposures to EDCs with racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diabetes disparities in the U.S.; discuss social forces promoting these disparities; and explore potential interventions. Articles examining the links between chemical exposures and metabolic disease were extracted from the U.S. National Library of Medicine for the period of 1966 to 3 December 2016. EDCs associated with diabetes in the literature were then searched for evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic exposure disparities. Among Latinos, African Americans, and low-income individuals, numerous studies have reported significantly higher exposures to diabetogenic EDCs, including polychlorinated biphenyls, organochlorine pesticides, multiple chemical constituents of air pollution, bisphenol A, and phthalates. This review reveals that unequal exposure to EDCs may be a novel contributor to diabetes disparities. Efforts to reduce the individual and societal burden of diabetes should include educating clinicians on environmental exposures that may increase disease risk, strategies to reduce those exposures, and social policies to address environmental inequality as a novel source of diabetes disparities.

The effects of public health policies on health inequalities: a review of reviews

BackgroundSocioeconomic inequalities are associated with unequal exposure to social, economic, and environmental risk factors, which in turn contribute to health inequalities. In a review of systematic reviews, we aimed to understand the impact of public health policy interventions on health inequalities. MethodsSystematic review methodology was used to identify systematic reviews (meta-analyses and narrative syntheses) from high-income countries that described the health equity effects of upstream public health interventions (eg, taxation, educational campaigns). Examples of health equity effects are differential effects across socioeconomic groups, or effects of interventions targeted at disadvantaged groups. 20 databases were searched from inception to May 4, 2017: Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Social Science Citation Index, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, PROSPERO, Campbell Library, Cochrane Library, Database of Promoting Health Effectiveness Reviews, Social Care Online, and Health Systems Evidence. We did not exclude papers on the basis of language or publication date. We included reviews of studies with longitudinal experimental and observational designs. Quality was determined with AMSTAR. Findings24 systematic reviews reporting 128 unique relevant primary studies were identified. The reviews summarised evidence of policies (fiscal, regulation, education, preventive treatment, and screening) across eight public health domains (tobacco; food and nutrition; the control of infectious diseases; screening; road traffic injuries; air, land, and water pollution; built environment; and workplace regulations). Most of the reviews were of moderate quality, as assessed by AMSTAR, although the included primary studies mainly followed repeat cross-sectional and interrupted time-series designs and were generally considered to be low in quality. Results were mixed across the public health domains; however, there was evidence from the tobacco, food and nutrition, and control of infectious diseases domains to suggest that fiscal and regulation policies were more beneficial for reducing or preventing health inequalities than educational campaigns. InterpretationThis umbrella review has identified effective public health regulation interventions that could reduce socioeconomic inequalities in health. FundingThis research is part of the Health Inequalities in European Welfare States project funded by the New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe Welfare State Futures programme (grant ref 462-14-110).

Multi-Contextual Segregation and Environmental Justice Research: Toward Fine-Scale Spatiotemporal Approaches.

Many environmental justice studies have sought to examine the effect of residential segregation on unequal exposure to environmental factors among different social groups, but little is known about how segregation in non-residential contexts affects such disparity. Based on a review of the relevant literature, this paper discusses the limitations of traditional residence-based approaches in examining the association between socioeconomic or racial/ethnic segregation and unequal environmental exposure in environmental justice research. It emphasizes that future research needs to go beyond residential segregation by considering the full spectrum of segregation experienced by people in various geographic and temporal contexts of everyday life. Along with this comprehensive understanding of segregation, the paper also highlights the importance of assessing environmental exposure at a high spatiotemporal resolution in environmental justice research. The successful integration of a comprehensive concept of segregation, high-resolution data and fine-grained spatiotemporal approaches to assessing segregation and environmental exposure would provide more nuanced and robust findings on the associations between segregation and disparities in environmental exposure and their health impacts. Moreover, it would also contribute to significantly expanding the scope of environmental justice research.

“Sometimes you Can't Even Sleep at Night:” Social Vulnerability to Disasters among Men Experiencing Homelessness in Central Florida

There has been relatively little research on how people experiencing homelessness prepare for, experience, and recover from disasters. This oversight means emergency managers have few resources to help them plan for the needs of the homeless during disasters. The present study utilizes the social vulnerability perspective to examine the risks that natural hazards pose to unsheltered men experiencing homelessness in Central Florida and analyse the structural origins of vulnerability among the homeless. The findings presented are the result of field interviews with unsheltered men and group interviews with homeless services providers. I argue that unequal exposure, social stigma, special medical needs, and chronic unemployment aggravate exposure to hazards among individuals experiencing homelessness. I conclude with recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and emergency managers to help individuals experiencing homelessness better manage their risk.

Matching Weights to Simultaneously Compare Three Treatment Groups: Comparison to Three-way Matching.

Propensity score matching is a commonly used tool. However, its use in settings with more than two treatment groups has been less frequent. We examined the performance of a recently developed propensity score weighting method in the three-treatment group setting. The matching weight method is an extension of inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) that reweights both exposed and unexposed groups to emulate a propensity score matched population. Matching weights can generalize to multiple treatment groups. The performance of matching weights in the three-group setting was compared via simulation to three-way 1:1:1 propensity score matching and IPTW. We also applied these methods to an empirical example that compared the safety of three analgesics. Matching weights had similar bias, but better mean squared error (MSE) compared with three-way matching in all scenarios. The benefits were more pronounced in scenarios with a rare outcome, unequally sized treatment groups, or poor covariate overlap. IPTW's performance was highly dependent on covariate overlap. In the empirical example, matching weights achieved the best balance for 24 out of 35 covariates. Hazard ratios were numerically similar to matching. However, the confidence intervals were narrower for matching weights. Matching weights demonstrated improved performance over three-way matching in terms of MSE, particularly in simulation scenarios where finding matched subjects was difficult. Given its natural extension to settings with even more than three groups, we recommend matching weights for comparing outcomes across multiple treatment groups, particularly in settings with rare outcomes or unequal exposure distributions. See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B188.

Place, Space, and Racially Unequal Exposures to Pollution at Home and Work

Research on racial inequalities in exposure to industrial pollution in U.S. metropolitan areas typically focuses on places of residence, ignoring the fact that most people work and commute to other areas to do so. To investigate what these daily commutes mean for understanding place- and space-based disparities in exposure, we merge federally compiled data on commuting and industrial air pollution with sociodemographic data on the home and work tracts of employed adults in Houston, Texas. Results from descriptive analyses and spatial regression models yield several insights often presumed but heretofore undemonstrated in prior research: (1) generally, people work in more toxic areas than they reside; (2) blacks and Latinos work as well as reside in more toxic areas than whites; and (3) unequal spatial relations via commuting powerfully predict a place’s level of toxic air pollution, net of other factors, including racial composition. Implications for current and future research are discussed.

A Theory of Currency Unions and Equity Price Shocks

This paper investigates the effects of financial shocks on per capita national income of multiple currency unions in different geographic locations. Though exposure to financial market shock is hardly considered and not generally measured as an important convergence criterion for unionization, currency unions are generally formed to attain greater regional and global economic integration. As a general theory, this paper finds that shocks to equity prices have imprecise implications for the performance of currency unions with divergent sources of income, different currency arrangements, evolutionary trade alliances, and unequal financial exposure. Specifically, historical alliances, geographic proximity, or even union membership, may not provide sufficient explanation for income volatility in currency unions after an exposure to equity price shocks. By utilizing annual time series data without seasonal adjustments to decompose variances, this paper finds that changes in equity prices may not significantly account for the volatility in per capita income of currency unions with weak intra-union trading patterns and less stringent currency arrangements.