Social disparities in health: disproportionate toxicity proximity in minority communities over a decade.
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 to 2000 in 3001 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.
Department of Criminology, Law and Society in the School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. john.hipp@UCI.edu
John R
JR
Hipp
Cynthia M
CM
Lakon
D001213:Asian / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002140:California; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D004522:Educational Status; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000032:analysis; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D016014:Linear Models; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011156:Population Density; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014504:Urban Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
D015386:Hazardous Substances