Developing Statistical Methodology and an Analytical Framework for Evaluating Environmental Justice via a Longitudinal Study of Metropolitan New York City

这项为期三年的研究将对适用于环境正义一般问题的纵向和半参数统计技术进行基本方法论研究。在这一过程中，它将对来自大都会纽约市的数据进行方法学上的适用性论证。总体目标是确定和传播研究环境正义问题的可靠的统计方法，包括以下方法：(1)利用数据的地理性质；(2)除种族差异外，评估和说明人口的社会经济地位；(3)纳入重要的时间信息。这项研究中更大的问题是试图摆脱对简单横断面模型中常见的因果推理的关联的依赖。过去，大量此类分析都是打着环境正义或环境公平的旗号进行的。然而，这些研究未能回答真正令人感兴趣的问题：少数族裔人口是否被设计不公平地强加于人？也就是说，社会是否因为少数族裔社区而将危险、污染或其他不利于环境的地点放在少数族裔社区？问题的一个关键因素是谁最先到达那里，是工地还是少数族裔社区？其次，如果少数族裔社区首先在那里，那么该社区在当时与该地区其他地区相比是否受到不公平的对待？这些问题必须首先得到充分的回答，然后才能声称环境不公平。

This three-year study will conduct basic methodological research into longitudinal and semiparametric statistical techniques applicable to the general problem of environmental justice. In the process it will demonstrate methodological applicability on data from metropolitan New York City. The overall goal is to define and disseminate statistically sound methods for studying the issues of environmental justice, including methodology that: (1) utilizes the geographic nature of the data, (2) evaluates and accounts for the social-economic status (SES) of the population in addition to racial variation, and (3) incorporates important temporal information. The larger issue in this research is attempting to get beyond the reliance on association for causal inference commonly encountered in simple cross-sectional models. In the past, a significant amount of this type of analysis has been conducted under the banner of environmental justice or environmental equity. However, these studies fail to answer the true question of interest: Were minority populations unfairly imposed upon by design? That is, did society place hazardous, polluting, or otherwise environmentally unfriendly sites in minority neighborhoods because they were minority neighborhoods? A key element of the problem is the question of who was there first, the site or the minority community? Secondarily, if the minority community was there first, was that community unfairly imposed upon at that time in relation to the rest of the region? These questions must be adequately answered first before environmental injustice can be claimed.