Exploring Micro-level Sources of Environmental Inequality

描述(由申请人提供)：尽管大量文献揭示了暴露在环境危害中的种族和民族差异，但我们对塑造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，工业设施的选址过程中存在种族偏见。然而，在居住流动性高的背景下，少数族裔持续集中在危险社区，必然反映出污染程度不同的社区之间存在种族差异的流动模式。事实上，对环境不平等最常见的理论解释是，家庭层面的住宅流动模式是维持环境不平等的关键机制。然而，到目前为止，数据限制阻碍了对具有不同危险级别的社区之间的家庭层面流动模式的适当检查，更不用说可能存在的种族和民族差异了。缺乏关于家庭一级流动过程的信息不仅使关于环境种族不平等的原因的关键理论论点未经检验，而且还留下了与这种不平等程度的巨大差异的来源有关的一些问题。这项拟议的研究试图通过合并来自全国代表性的小组收入动态研究(PSID)的个人层面的住宅流动性数据和来自美国人口普查的社区层面的人口数据和来自环境保护局(EPA)的有毒物质释放清单(TRI)、两年一度的报告系统(BRS)、资源保护和恢复法案信息系统(RCRIS)以及风险筛选环境指标(RSEI)项目的环境危害数据，来解决这些文献中的显著差距。这项研究将利用一种新的创新的地理信息系统(GIS)技术，根据地理距离反向加权每种危险的潜在影响，使我们能够比之前的研究更精确地衡量危险的接近程度，并且危险数据提供关于多种环境危险的信息，使我们能够比较不同环境危险对住宅流动性的相对影响。此外，这项研究将借鉴邻里关系研究的理论见解，以提供对居住流动性在创造环境种族不平等中所起作用的更微妙的理论理解。将这些理论见解与更适当的多层次数据相结合，可以第一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。与公共健康的相关性：最近的研究发现，居民区附近和暴露在环境危害中会对身心健康和对社会混乱的看法产生有害影响，而对社会混乱的看法会对心理健康产生负面影响。因此，在研究环境危害程度不同的社区之间的家庭层面流动模式是否存在种族和民族差异时，这项研究将揭示种族分层流动过程对公共健康的影响。它还将为关于美国种族和民族健康差距的研究提供信息。

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.