Exploring Micro-level Sources of Environmental Inequality

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管越来越多的文献揭示了种族和民族在暴露于环境危害方面的巨大差异，但我们对形成和加强这种环境不平等的微观过程知之甚少。当然，有证据表明，在工业设施选址过程中存在种族偏见。然而，在高居民流动性的背景下，少数民族在危险社区的持续集中必然反映了不同污染水平社区之间的种族差异流动模式。事实上，对环境不平等最常见的理论解释暗示，家庭层面的居民流动模式是维持环境不平等的关键机制。然而，迄今为止，由于数据的限制，无法对不同危险程度的社区之间的家庭流动模式进行适当审查，更不用说其中的种族和族裔差异了。家庭层面流动过程信息的缺乏不仅使关于环境种族不平等原因的关键理论论点未经检验，而且还留下了一些与这种不平等程度的实质性变化的来源有关的问题。本研究旨在通过将来自全国代表性收入动态小组研究（PSID）的个人层面的住宅流动性数据与来自美国人口普查的社区层面人口统计数据以及来自环境保护署（EPA）有毒物质释放清单（TRI）的环境危害数据、两年一次的报告系统（BRS）相结合，来解决这些文献中的重大差距；资源保护与恢复法案信息系统；风险筛选环境指标（RSEI）项目。该研究将利用一种新的创新地理信息系统（GIS）技术，根据地理距离对每种灾害的潜在影响进行反向加权，使我们能够比以前的研究更精确地测量灾害的接近程度，并且灾害数据提供了多种类型的环境灾害的信息，使我们能够比较不同环境灾害对居民流动性的相对影响。此外，本研究将借鉴邻里成就研究的理论见解，为住宅流动性在环境种族不平等产生中的作用提供更细致入微的理论理解。将这些理论见解与更合适的多层次数据相结合，可以首次解决一些研究问题，这些问题对于理解影响环境不平等的过程至关重要。公共卫生相关性：最近的研究发现，居住附近和暴露于环境危害可对身心健康和对社会紊乱的看法产生有害影响，而对社会紊乱的看法可对心理健康产生负面影响。因此，在研究不同环境危害水平的社区之间的家庭流动模式是否存在种族和民族差异时，本研究将揭示种族分层流动过程对公共卫生的影响。它还将为美国种族和民族健康差异的研究提供信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although a burgeoning body of literature has revealed substantial racial and ethnic differences in exposure to environmental hazards, we have very little information about the micro-level processes that shape and reinforce this environmental inequality. Certainly, there is evidence of racial biases in the process through which industrial facilities are sited. However, in the context of high residential mobility, the persistent concentration of minorities in hazardous neighborhoods necessarily reflects racially differentiated patterns of mobility between neighborhoods with varying levels of pollution. Indeed, the most common theoretical explanations for environmental inequality implicate household-level residential mobility patterns as the key mechanism through which environmental inequality is maintained. To date, however, data limitations have prevented the appropriate examination of household-level mobility patterns between neighborhoods with varying hazard levels, much less possible racial and ethnic differences therein. This dearth of information on household-level mobility processes not only leaves untested key theoretical arguments about the causes of environmental racial inequality, it also leaves open a number of questions related to the source of substantial variation in the magnitude of this inequality. This proposed study seeks to address these significant gaps in the literature by merging individual-level residential mobility data from the nationally representative Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) with neighborhood-level demographic data from the U.S. Census and environmental hazard data derived from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), Biennial Reporting System (BRS); Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Information System (RCRIS); and Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) project. The study will utilize a new and innovative Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technique that weights the potential impact of each hazard inversely according to geographic distance, allowing us to measure hazard proximity more precisely than has been possible in prior research, and the hazard data provide information on multiple types of environmental hazards, allowing us to compare the relative impact of different environmental hazards on residential mobility. In addition, the study will draw on the theoretical insights of neighborhood attainment research to provide a more nuanced theoretical understanding of the role residential mobility plays in the creation of environmental racial inequality. Combining these theoretical insights with more appropriate multi-level data makes it possible to address, for the first time, a number of research question that are crucial for understanding the processes that affect environmental inequality. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Recent research has found that residential proximity and exposure to environmental hazards can have a deleterious effect on physical and psychological health and perceptions of social disorder, and that perceptions of social disorder can negatively affect psychological health. Thus, in examining whether there are racial and ethnic differences in household-level mobility patterns between neighborhoods with varying levels of environmental hazard, this study will shed light on the public health implications of racially stratified mobility processes. It will also inform research on racial and ethnic health disparities in the United States.