Evaluation of a Population of Sex Offenders in Oakland, California, Using CalEnviroScreen Version 1.1: A Case Study

摘要

Low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods bearing disproportionate pollution burdens have been referred to as environmental justice (EJ) communities. To identify EJ communities, California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) developed a screening tool (CalEnviroScreen) incorporating data for social and environmental exposure metrics. The purpose of this study was to examine whether classified sex offenders, who comprise approximately ten percent of California inmates and who often locate to low SES neighborhoods upon release, resided in Oakland, California neighborhoods bearing relatively high pollution burdens on a selected date in April of 2013. To this end, publicly available residency data for registered offenders living in eleven Oakland zip codes was obtained. Using the CalEnviroScreen tool and 2010 census data, the distribution of registered offenders was examined. Two-sample tests for binomial proportions were performed to examine offender distribution, and the likelihood of offenders to live in zip codes characterized by high pollution burdens was considered. Offenders tended to be overrepresented in lower income zip codes and, overall, were unequally represented in eight of eleven zip codes (p ＜ 0.05). As compared to the general population, significantly more offenders resided in zip codes having a pollution burden score (PBS) of at least 5 (out of 10) (p ＜ 0.05). This information alone cannot be used to determine whether these individuals are at an increased risk of certain adverse health outcomes. However, the results support previous studies suggesting that individuals of low SES, including released sex offenders, are disproportionately burdened by multiple pollution sources that could, in principle, put them at an increased risk of some adverse health outcomes. This study points to potential future uses of the CalEnviroScreen tool in chemical exposure assessment and environmental justice analyses of populations for whom publicly available residency data is available.