Arsenic in private well water part 3 of 3: Socioeconomic vulnerability to exposure in Maine and New Jersey
Arsenic in private well water part 3 of 3: Socioeconomic vulnerability to exposure in Maine and New Jersey
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DOI：
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.03.217
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发表时间：
2016-08-15
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Zheng, Yan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Flanagan, Sara V.;Spayd, Steven E.;Zheng, Yan
砷是一种天然存在的有毒元素，通常集中在地下水中，其浓度对人类消费不安全。在美国，私人井水大多不受联邦和州饮用水标准的管制。1300多万依赖私人水井取水的美国家庭有责任确保饮用水安全。在美国，所有社会经济地位（SES）水平与健康结果都有一致的分级关联。不同的环境风险暴露可能会导致这种持续的SES-健康梯度。环境正义倡导者引用了大量证据，证明收入和其他社会经济指标与暴露于次优环境条件（包括污染物、毒素及其影响）一直呈负相关。在这里，我们使用来自两个州的私人水井家庭调查来调查SES与砷暴露风险之间的关系，检查居住地点、检测和治疗行为以及影响行为的心理因素的潜在累积效应。研究发现，自然砷危害在环境中的分布具有社会经济随机性。没有证据表明社会经济地位较高的家庭避开砷污染地区，或者社会经济地位较低的群体不成比例地居住在砷污染地区。相反，暴露的差异源于不同的保护措施，主要是检测井水的砷含量，其次是处理或避免污染的水。我们观察到了社会经济地位在行为上的差异，以及对这些行为最有利的心理因素。风险评估不应仅仅局限于砷的空间分布。重要的是，将社会脆弱性因素纳入风险建模和确定干预的优先领域，其中应包括专门针对社会经济上脆弱群体的战略，以及导致这些检测和治疗行为差异的所有条件。(C) 2016 Elsev er BM。版权所有。
Arsenic is a naturally occurring toxic element often concentrated in groundwater at levels unsafe for human consumption. Private well water in the United States is mostly unregulated by federal and state drinking water standards. It is the responsibility of the over 13 million U.S. households regularly depending on private wells for their water to ensure it is safe for drinking. There is a consistent graded association with health outcomes at all levels of socioeconomic status (SES) in the U.S. Differential exposure to environmental risk may be contributing to this persistent SES-health gradient. Environmental justice advocates cite overwhelming evidence that income and other SES measures are consistently inversely correlated with exposure to suboptimal environmental conditions including pollutants, toxins, and their impacts. Here we use private well household surveys from two states to investigate the association between SES and risks for arsenic exposure, examining the potentially cumulative effects of residential location, testing and treatment behavior, and psychological factors influencing behavior. We find that the distribution of natural arsenic hazard in the environment is socioeconomically random. There is no evidence that higher SES households are avoiding areas with arsenic or that lower SES groups are disproportionately residing in areas with arsenic. Instead, disparities in exposure arise from differing rates of protective action, primarily testing well water for arsenic, and secondly treating or avoiding contaminated water. We observe these SES disparities in behavior as well as in the psychological factors that are most favorable to these behaviors. Assessment of risk should not be limited to the spatial occurrence of arsenic alone. it is important that social vulnerability factors are incorporated into risk modeling and identifying priority areas for intervention, which should include strategies that specifically target socioeconomically vulnerable groups as well as all the conditions which cause these disparities in testing and treatment behavior. (C) 2016 Elsev er BM. All rights reserved.