Environmental justice: frequency and severity of US chemical industry accidents and the socioeconomic status of surrounding communities.
OBJECTIVE
The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 requires that chemical facilities in the US with specified quantities of certain toxic or flammable chemicals file a five year history of accidents. This study considers the relation between the reported accidents and surrounding community characteristics.


METHODS
This study is a retrospective analysis of the association between the demographics of counties in which facilities are located and the risk of accidental chemical release and resulting injuries at those facilities. The "location risk" (the risk that a facility having large volumes of hazardous chemicals is located in a community) and "operations risk" (the risk of an accident itself) are investigated.


METHODS
1994-2000 accident history data from 15 083 US industrial facilities using one or more of 140 flammable or toxic substances above a threshold level. Demographic makeup of 2333 counties surrounding these facilities was determined from the 1990 US census.


RESULTS
Larger and more chemical intensive facilities tend to be located in counties with larger African-American populations and in counties with both higher median incomes and high levels of income inequality. Even after adjusting for location risk there is greater risk of accidents for facilities in heavily African-American counties (OR of accident = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.5 to 2.4).


CONCLUSIONS
Further research and policy interventions are required to reduce the probability of locating facilities in an inequitable fashion, as well as health surveillance, and regulatory monitoring and enforcement activities to ensure that hazardous facilities in minority communities prepare and prevent accidental chemical releases to the same standards as elsewhere.
Elliott
M R
MR
Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia 19104, USA. melliot@cceb.upenn.edu
Wang
Y
Y
Lowe
R A
RA
Kleindorfer
P R
PR
D000059:Accidents / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002617:Chemical Industry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000633:toxicity*; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011203:Poverty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D012923:Social Class; D012935:Social Justice; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology
D015386:Hazardous Substances