An Assessment of Environmental Justice in California: The Impact of Race and Income on the Distribution of Cumulative Exposures to Air Toxics. Rachel Morello-Frosch, University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, Berkeley, CA; Tracey Woodruff, US EPA; and Frederic Bois and William Pease, University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, Berkeley, CA
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors, and they do not necessarily represent those of the US EPA.
The two decades of regulatory decision-making on air pollution problems have not considered equity issues in terms of the distribution of air toxics among diverse communities in the United States. Yet air pollution may play an important, albeit relatively unexplored role in the complex pattern of disparate health status among the poor and people of color in the United States. Although ample evidence exists indicating that environmental hazard to state air toxics emissions inventory and monitoring data. The analysis will control for important covariates such as population density and urbanization. Comparative analyses will examine specific geographical regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County Basin, where air pollution is an acute problem and residential segregation could indicate potential environmental inequities.
Work supported by US EPA and the Switzer Environmental Fellowship.