Demographic Analysis of the Distribution of Cumulative Exposure to Air Toxics in the United States. T. J. Woodruff, D. A. Axelrad, R. Morello-Frosch, M. P. Ligocki, and R. D. Atkinson, US Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M St. SW, Washington, DC 20460; School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA 94720; and Systems Applications International, 101 Lucas Valley Rd., San Rafael, CA 94909
There is a growing concern about the cumulative effects of localized exposure to toxic chemicals and the distribution of these exposures across communities in the United States. One large source of exposure is from air toxics. Previous evaluations of demographic distribution of exposure to air pollution has mostly focused on exposures from TRI sources. EPA has initiated work to estimate cumulative annual-average ambient concentrations to air toxics at the census tract level as part of their cumulative exposure project. These data include a more complete inventory of exposures from outside sources, including stationary and mobile sources, and a unique database for evaluating cumulative exposures to air toxics and their demographic distribution. Ambient concentrations of air toxics will be combined with census data to evaluate the demographic characteristics of the exposure distribution. Multivariate analysis will be used to evaluate the importance of race, income, and population density in explaining the variation of exposures in the United States. The methods for evaluating these distributions across the United States will be presented and selected results discussed.
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors, and they do not necessarily represent those of the US EPA.