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ABSTRACT
Quantitative environmental justice (EJ) research has relied on aggregated data from census units to determine disproportionate hazard exposure. Additionally, variables typically used to analyze ethnic inequities in exposure (e.g., percent Hispanic) are too broad and assume a degree of homogeneity that may not exist, given the diversity of ethnic minority populations. We address these limitations through a study that utilizes primary household level survey data and cancer risk estimates from the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) to analyze intra-ethnic inequities in exposure to vehicular air pollutants in the Miami metropolitan area, Florida. Our analysis disaggregates the Hispanic category based on five characteristics (language proficiency, U.S. citizenship, nativity, unemployment status, and national origin) and finds that risk burdens are significantly higher for Hispanic respondents who are foreign-born, unemployed, and of Cuban origin. Findings highlight the advantages of downscaling EJ analyses to the household level and considering intra-ethnic heterogeneity in EJ research and policy.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge Dr. Marilyn Montgomery for her assistance with data preparation. Any opinions, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The 33% response rate is for the total sample, which included participants from both the Miami and Houston Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). The sampling strategy used by Collins et al. (Citation2015b) in the Miami MSA was applied for this study.
