title: Disproportionate proximity to environmental health hazards: methods, models, and measurement.
abstract: We sought to provide a historical overview of methods, models, and data used in the environmental justice (EJ) research literature to measure proximity to environmental hazards and potential exposure to their adverse health effects. We explored how the assessment of disproportionate proximity and exposure has evolved from comparing the prevalence of minority or low-income residents in geographic entities hosting pollution sources and discrete buffer zones to more refined techniques that use continuous distances, pollutant fate-and-transport models, and estimates of health risk from toxic exposure. We also reviewed analytical techniques used to determine the characteristics of people residing in areas potentially exposed to environmental hazards and emerging geostatistical techniques that are more appropriate for EJ analysis than conventional statistical methods. We concluded by providing several recommendations regarding future research and data needs for EJ assessment that would lead to more reliable results and policy solutions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA. jchakrab@usf.edu
authors.forename: Jayajit
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chakraborty
authors.forename: Juliana A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Maantay
authors.forename: Jean D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Brender
mesh_terms: D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis*; D004782:Environmental Health; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D012935:Social Justice; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
chemical_list: D015386:Hazardous Substances