Assessment of relative exposure of minority and low-income groups to outdoor air pollution

摘要

A diverse research effort, conducted by both federal agencies and scholars in academia, has addressed the issue of environmental justice. Recent environmental justice studies have generally focused on the demographics of areas close to hazardous waste facilities; landfills; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System (CERCLIS) sites; and Superfund sites. Recent efforts at the federal and state levels to determine risk-related priorities in allocating resources for research and remediation have found that hazardous wastes present much lower health effect risks than air pollution does. Past research findings, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), showed disproportionately high levels of substandard air quality exposure for minority and low-income populations. This study is a continuation of that earlier research.