Creating just, healthy cities: challenging inequalities in health deprivation from air pollution in minority communities

创建公正、健康的城市：挑战少数民族社区因空气污染而剥夺健康的不平等现象

• 批准号: 2734199
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Leicester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2734199
• 关键词: Creating; just; healthy; cities; challenging

Overview: This project aims to investigate emerging issues around air pollution and wide spread disease (focusing on COVID-19[1]) and inequalities in society, namely, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and access to health/welfare support. Research Questions-1: Are members of UK lower income and/or BAME communities exposed to higher levels of air pollution than other demographics; are these citizens being relatively disadvantaged by current UK planning (housing), social welfare and health policies; and how could health and air pollution policies be adjusted to mitigate this? Research Questions-2: Do linkages exist (in existing data) between air pollution exposure, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and access to health/welfare support, and outcome and severity of COVID-19?The global pandemic resulted in early recognition of an ethnic disparity in vulnerability to contracting diseases such as COVID-19, and outcome severity [2]. Bio-culturally, this inter-population variation in susceptibility relates to more than biology or genes. Early research suggests that socio-economic factors e.g. employment and housing status may have led to health disparities and resulted in inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that there may also be linkages with respect to these health inequalities/outcomes and exposure to air pollution, a growing global threat to health with deprived areas of society often suffering from greatest exposure despite contributing least to emissions[3]. This consequential link between socioeconomic deprivation, housing, ethnicity, air pollution exposure and health risks[4] need to be explored to ensure health equality and social justice in society moving forward.Unfortunately, only early exploratory studies have been conducted on these issues during the COVID-19 pandemic, as such there exists a major research gap in understanding spatio-temporal evolution of air pollution and its impacts linked to health inequalities and ethnic disparity on the backdrop of a major pandemic. This PhD aims to address this research gap using quantitative and qualitative techniques to investigate linkages between key air pollutants, COVID-19 instance and outcome, and socio-economic descriptors (e.g. ethnicity and deprivation) and also to understand the impacts of key policies on low-income and BAME communities, and the structural issues that need to be tackled that often mean such communities get pushed to more vulnerable living areas of society. Figure 1: Age-adjusted COVID-19 UK mortality rate between 29th June 2020 and 31st January 2021 by ethnic group (source: gov.uk). Alt Text: Sudden rise in rate ~ winter 2020, with other, Asian, black and mixed-race ethnic categories significantly higher than white.

概述：该项目旨在调查围绕空气污染和广泛传播的疾病（重点关注 COVID-19[1]）和社会不平等的新问题，即社会经济地位、种族和获得健康/福利支持的机会。研究问题 1：英国低收入群体和/或 BAME 社区的成员是否比其他人群面临更高水平的空气污染？这些公民是否因英国当前的规划（住房）、社会福利和健康政策而处于相对不利的地位？如何调整健康和空气污染政策来缓解这一问题？研究问题 2：空气污染暴露、社会经济状况、种族和获得健康/福利支持以及 COVID-19 的结果和严重程度之间是否存在联系（在现有数据中）？全球大流行导致人们及早认识到在感染 COVID-19 等疾病的脆弱性和结果严重程度方面存在种族差异 [2]。从生物文化角度来看，这种人群间易感性差异不仅仅与生物学或基因有关。早期研究表明，社会经济因素，例如就业和住房状况可能导致了健康差异，并导致了 COVID-19 大流行期间的不平等，而且这些健康不平等/结果与空气污染暴露也可能存在联系，空气污染是全球健康面临的日益严重的威胁，社会贫困地区尽管排放量最小，但往往遭受最大程度的污染[3]。需要探索社会经济剥夺、住房、种族、空气污染暴露和健康风险之间的这种必然联系[4]，以确保社会向前发展的健康平等和社会正义。不幸的是，在 COVID-19 大流行期间，仅对这些问题进行了早期探索性研究，因此，在理解空气污染的时空演变及其与健康不平等和健康相关的影响方面存在重大研究空白。 大流行背景下的种族差异。该博士旨在利用定量和定性技术来解决这一研究空白，调查关键空气污染物、COVID-19 实例和结果以及社会经济描述符（例如种族和贫困）之间的联系，并了解关键政策对低收入和少数族裔社区的影响，以及需要解决的结构性问题，这些问题通常意味着这些社区被推向社会更脆弱的生活区域。 图 1：2020 年 6 月 29 日至 2021 年 1 月 31 日期间按种族划分的英国 COVID-19 死亡率（来源：gov.uk）。替代文本：2020 年冬季，比率突然上升，其他、亚洲、黑人和混血族裔类别明显高于白人。